


Precious Metals

by AQLM



Category: Rizzoli & Isles
Genre: Courtship, Donuts, F/F, First Time, Murder Mystery, Plot, Plotty, Smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-28
Updated: 2018-03-10
Packaged: 2018-07-27 06:17:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 33,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7606954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AQLM/pseuds/AQLM
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jane and Maura must unravel their feelings for each other while unraveling a strange case of murder, metals, and malfeasance. Heavy-duty Rizzles and rather smutty.</p><p>Takes place somewhere between 4x05 (Dance with the Devil) and 4x07 (All for One).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Truth to be told, Jane actually didn’t mind the long drawn out explanations Maura liked to include with even simple statements of fact. And it wasn’t just because Jane had managed to parlay that information into a handful of won bets and bar trivia successes. It was that she actually appreciated that Maura had taken the time and energy to learn so much about the world and that, even more wonderfully, Maura saw fit to share that information unbidden with her best friend. Really what got to the brown haired detective was that Maura did not know when such information was appreciated and when the presence of a scientific or archaeological monologue could very well interfere with catching her murderer. In general, though, the content did not disturb her. The delivery, so matter of fact and intellectual, actually entertained Jane more than it caused her aggravation no matter how much she liked to play out that emotion.

It was the case today that the same explanation and calm, scientific demeanor was informing her of something she very much did not want to hear or experience.

The petite blonde sat upright in Jane’s bed, the edge of the thick white comforter wrapped around her chest, giving a tantalizing view of the edges of her breasts above the line of the draping. One hand kept the coverlet in place while the other was giving slow, explanatory hand gestures, as if she were indicating the etiology of an unusual word that she’d pulled out just for the occasion. In this case, she was not discussing tribal rituals surrounding communal lunches or the history of archery in Massachusetts. Today, it was a logical and organized explanation of why she and Jane should not sleep together again.

“… And it’s not uncommon for young women in college to indulge and explore previously on explored regions of their sexuality. There’s something very freeing about being away from home for the first time and, as I saw with many of my female companions, in the absence of heterosexual stimulation, they chose instead to achieve enjoyment through experiences with the female gender. However…”

Jane was focusing in and out on the words. She herself was half wrapped in a blanket, though she let it fall so she was naked from the waist up. Her dark curly hair spilled over her shoulders in a cascade that, not more than a half hour ago, Maura had so happily pulled towards her. Jane shuddered as she remembered Maura’s fingers interlaced in the curls as she pressed Jane’s face into her body and whispered, then screamed, Jane’s name as her tongue found the sweet, hot center of Maura’s sex. That passion has now evaporated and the lecture given in front of her might as well have been administered to a conference of people interested in researching the sex lives of heterosexual women who have just their first lesbian experience.

“And you’re not listening to anything I’m telling you,” said Maura, a sigh escaping her lips. She tilted her head and her dirty blonde hair shaded her face. Jane recognized the expression as one of resignation and even loneliness, as if Maura where back in a space where people did not want to talk to her being here. All her life Maura had been too intellectual and too distant. It was only in the care of Jane and the rest of the Boston Police Department that she had truly begun to flourish. After all, all of them respected her and looked up to her. Korsak especially seemed enamored of her ability to come up with a scientific her esoteric explanation for everything around. At times like this, when the person she wanted most to listen to her didn’t, she retreated to that unsure child. It stabbed Jane to the heart when they were at work and stabbed just as painfully right now. Jane herself was shaken and taken aback so she did a poor job, she admitted to herself, of attempting to reassure her friend.

“Maura. Please. You know I hate… I don’t understand. Half hour ago you seem to be enjoying yourself and now you’re telling me that this was all a terrible mistake? Did this mean nothing to you?” Her husky voice raised in shocked anger, well, an anger that was more sadness. Had she been so misled that she took advantage of someone who did not want it? A cold spark of fear formed in her stomach. She didn’t have time to fully contemplate that before Maura reached out that one free hand and placed it lightly around Jane’s rest.

“No. Jane. That’s exactly what I wanted. I willingly engaged in sexual relations with you.”

“Sexual relations,” interrupted Jane, gesturing outward with her free hand, her face in an open scowl. “What, you’re giving a court deposition now? Do you need to explain to the jury what relations you had?”

A subtle eye roll cut off Jane’s small rant and she let Maura continue.

“As I said, I was happy to be here. The experience was exceptionally pleasurable. I would need to check my diaries but if I recall my data correctly, this would certainly rank in the top fifteen, maybe even the top ten sexual encounters of my adult dating life.”

Jane blinked several times, scrunched her nose, and peered at her friend. “Wait, you keep a log of people you have sex with? Like a sign in book at the police station, with dates and times?”

Maura shrugged, letting another lock of hair drape past her pale shoulder. “I find it helpful to journal my sexual encounters so I can empirically determine what techniques brought me to the strongest orgasms and which were suboptimal or even unpleasant. That way, I could effectively guide my partners towards actions that were desirable versus those I found displeasing, while still allowing for individual experimentation of course.”

Jane leaned back in awe. “You’ve been chronicling your sex life so you can get off more effectively? For how long?”

The other woman tilted her head up to the left, a gesture Jane had learned (from Maura, of course) meant she was recalling rather than lying.

“I began the process after several deeply unsatisfying sexual encounters in college.”

“You’ve been keeping records for almost 20 years? Jesus Christ Maura. You keep better records than we do at the station.” Jane imagined neat piles of white cardboard file boxes stacked in the back of a closet that Jane had somehow never seen before. She was also stunned to learn Maura had any sort of casual sex, but that would be a different conversation. If the two of them kept speaking after this, of course.

Maura nodded her head, then looked a little bashful. “Well, there have been more murders in Boston over the past 20 years than I have....” She cut off the rest of the comment and kept blushing. 

“Using these data, I estimate I can achieve orgasm, or as you say, “get off” in 60% of new partner first encounters and 93% of subsequent encounters, assuming a small margin of error for things like unexpected termination of intercourse due to interruptions from work, premature ejaculation…”

As Maura went on to recount all the ways a sexual encounter could end up as a “margin of error,” Jane recalled how they spent the last two hours. She remembered Maura guiding her hands onto her breasts, how the smaller woman arched as Jane had explored each nipple with her fingertips and then her mouth. How Maura had wrapped her legs around Jane’s midsection as Jane stroked her clit and kissed along the nape of her neck. Had that all been according to some plan or were they actual expressions of desire and lust? Was this all a script according to Maura’s book?

Jane’s face drooped and Maura must have noticed. The hand on her wrist squeezed tighter. “As you are my first female partner, I did not have any specific data with which to work, so I mentally aggregated similar situations and proceeded as such. Based on what I know of you, I assumed you’d be a skilled lover, so I did not use as much intervention as I could have. But of course, I didn’t want you to end up attempting to fondle my armpit or something like that.” Her voice took on a forced levity that Jane weakly attempted to smile at. She must have been unconvincing.

Maura looked at Jane carefully, then dropped her head towards the bed. “I’ve hurt you. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

Jane withdrew in spite of herself and brought her knees up towards her chest. A defensive maneuver designed to contain the sudden vulnerability and emptiness that overtook the warmth and love they had shared so recently. As was her custom, she tried to reassure her awkward, tentative friend.

“It’s alright. I’ll be fine. It’s just…” She stared at Maura, trying to keep her emotions in check. “It’s hard knowing I was just another data point and that you were clinically directing our lovemaking. I thought it was real. Hell, it felt real. It felt amazing. But it was just an act, right? Just so I won’t ruin your percentages.”

Maura shook her head but Jane continued, “I feel like a dog you’ve trained to shake hands. For my next trick, maybe you’ll teach me to roll over.”

Maura leaned forward suddenly and put her hands on Jane’s shoulders, allowing the blanket to fall away from her curving body, all freckles, round breasts and pale skin.

“It was not an act. Nothing with you, nothing emotional, nothing physical, nothing…anything…is unreal with you. You know I can’t lie but I am good at hiding. I’ve always needed to be good. I was raised to close myself off. You are the exception.” She touched her forehead to Jane’s. “You let me be vulnerable and you don’t exploit it. I would not repay that with artifice.”

Jane didn’t respond and glanced at the clock beside them. Forty minutes ago, this posture would have led to Jane’s reaching out and pulling Maura closer, kissing her passionately and trying to convince her to go another round. Now, it felt uncomfortable.

“It’s fine. I shouldn’t be surprised that my friend, the eminent scientist and medical examiner Dr. Isles, would do anything less than make a chart and ranking system of everyone she’s ever fucked.” Maura winced at the profanity. She almost never used it and Jane’s letting loose signaled how frustrated she was. “And hey, 60% is amazing. I know guys who I can’t get to do that after a few months of dating. But you have it down to a literal science.”

Maura stroked the side of Jane’s face with the back of her hand. “You were wonderful,” she said gently. “You were everything I wanted. No data needed.”

“So why are you saying we shouldn’t do this again?” Jane inched back and Maura took the cue to sit on the bed again and, after a moment’s thought, lightly hop on to the floor where she had tossed her clothing. “I remember your saying something about it being a bad idea. How does it work again? You want something so you shouldn’t have it? I didn’t know you were a practicing Catholic.”

Jane watched Maura’s curving body scoop up her bra and panties and slide them on neatly. The clothes had been removed in a loving, careful seduction that had seen Jane undress her friend inch by inch, letting Maura in turn play with Jane’s hungry body through her clothing and eventually underneath. It had taken every inch of her police training and newly developed self-control not to ravage Maura utterly. She wanted her friend to feel her need and desire; even worship. But, Jane reminded herself, that was apparently a calculation.

Maura hooked her bra into place and readjusted her breasts to fill the cups. “You are lucky enough to have a job you love and a boyfriend who, in spite of your current distance, is absolutely devoted to you. Given that Casey is rapidly advancing to the peak of his military career, I do not want to provide another obstacle for you to consider if he asks you to move with him. And I don’t want to restrict you from pursuing your dreams if I decide to take a position elsewhere.” She shrugged herself into a silk blouse and aligned the buttons with a doctor’s precision, sliding each one into the hole. “You deserve the chance to be whatever you want, wherever you want. Having sex with me will merely stand in the way.”

Jane rubbed the side of her nose and stared at her friend. Why where they having this fight? Where had everything gone so wrong? “First of all, I don’t see you retiring from being the Boston medical examiner unless you are forced out at gunpoint or recruited by the UN to conduct autopsies in a war zone. Second of all, I don’t understand how having sex with you matters? I think of you when I make choices now but it’s not the only deciding factor. Nothing is.”

Jane slid out of bed and tried to take Maura in her arms. The smaller woman slid aside, leaving Jane able to only place her hand on Maura’s shoulder. “You are my family, Maura.”

Maura zipped up her pants and made a show of smoothing out creases only she could detect. “The Polahi nomadic tribe in Indonesia’s Gorontalo province practices first-degree relative incest because the tribe is so small. They are unique in that lack of prohibition, though. Most-“

“You know what I mean,” said Jane in a frustrated huff. When Maura was concealing her emotions, she became supremely scientific and professorial. The lecture on Maura’s log book, the data check, and now her anthropological dialogue all served to push Jane away from her emotionally and force Jane to break down the intellectual boundaries Maura was throwing up second by second. As usual, Maura succeeded in derailing the conversation enough to almost trivialize what Jane said.

The scientist turned away from Jane to search the floor. “I do. But you know my experience with family. I do not want to jeopardize what I have now.”

Jane thought of Maura’s father, whose selflessness devotion to his daughter was borne out of a desire to cling to his ex-lover, of Maura’s biological mother, whose ties were tenuous and of late driven by a need for Maura’s kidney, and even Maura’s adoptive parents, whose love was a distant and intellectual sort. 

“Maura, you know my mom, Frankie…” Jane threw up her hands and Maura slid on a pair of heels, boosting her height by a good three inches. “We are all your family. I know they would accept…”

“Please, Jane. I’ve made my decision. Do not force me to defend myself further.” There was a shivering tremble in her voice that filled Jane was a raw ache. Under the best of circumstances hearing Maura start to cry was painful, especially when she was so upset she wouldn’t let Jane take care of her, but now, after everything they shared? It was a sort of torture, as bad as when Hoyt was running his scalpel over Maura’s neck while Jane was helpless to prevent it. Worse, since the only person to turn the scalpel on would be herself. Why couldn’t they go back an hour when Maura wanted her touch and Jane reciprocated her need?

“Of course. I’m sorry. Listen. Let me walk you out?” Maura turned her head and gave a miserable short nod, and Jane have no trouble imagining the thin clear tracks of tears that were winding her way down her friends beautiful features. But hey, they had several years of Jane needing to keep from touching her friend when Maura was suffering and being forced to give verbal reassurance when physical ones what she would have preferred. So if Maura wanted to be walked to the door in silence, that was what Jane would do. 

She grabbed a robe and two of them left the bedroom, walked across the cluttered expanse of the front room, and reached the door. Jane fumbled the lock and chain, hoping that every tiny bit of clattering metal might sound an alarm in Maura’s head that she was making a terrible mistake. Maura happily turned the doorknob and stepped into the hallway.

She locked eyes with Jane and forced a smile that didn’t reach her red-tinged eyes. “I’ll see you Monday, Jane.” She hesitated. “Thank you. I mean it.” A small hand reached out and traced the upper edge Jane’s news, along her cheek bone and to the side of her head. Jane fought the urge to chase the hand with her mouth. “Have a good night,” Maura added quickly, withdrew, and fled down the hall.

Jane locked the door, wandered over to the couch, and flopped down on it sadly. Joe Friday woke up from her pile of cushions in the corner and trotted over to her mistress’ lap, then placed her shaggy head down on Jane’s knee. The police officer mussed her fur and tried to figure out where everything had gone so wrong after being so right. But it was just an exercise in self torture, enough like others that it didn’t last long enough to keep her from falling asleep.

/--\\__/--\\__/--\\__/--\\__/--\\__/--\\__

Maura distracted herself on the ride home with a through listing of the tendons of the body, starting with the ligamentum flavum and working her way distal, anterior, and then medial again. It was something she did whenever she needed to put her mind at ease. After all, ligaments were orderly and held things together. They made movement possible. They made life possible. Never mind that she rarely had to name more than a single muscle and it was usually somewhere in the thorax. Nothing like keeping the brain fresh when trying to keep a tight rein on her emotions.

She pushed open the door to the guest house and found Angela sitting at the long bar, her glasses on the tip of her long nose and a half-finished glass of red wine sitting next to her. She appeared to be poring over a book that Maura recognized as one of the more tawdry romance novels that ha d hit the best seller list. Maura could of course never admit to being fascinated with the topic, especially since the sexual descriptions were arousing. It allowed her a bit of variety in her usual sexual fantasies, which she admitted were relatively run of the mill, without the shame of buying a pornographic magazine. But she also liked how the plots all lined up. Man and woman meet. Man and woman love. Man and woman have falling out that barely affects their emotions for each other besides giving them a chance to reflect on their lust and love. Man and woman rejoin and marry. So perfect. Unlike…well, there were still more ligaments and she could start on tendons.

“How was your hot date,” crowed Angela, slipping a napkin into her place and closing the hardcover firmly. The plastic wrinkled slightly and the cover clapped shut with a thud. “I didn’t expect you home so early?’

“Hot…date,” replied Maura. She didn’t want to lie, she reminded herself. Hives. But she couldn’t really say the truth. “What makes you think I had a hot date?”

“Your shoes,” replied Angela. She pointed towards the three inch tall stilettos gracing Maura’s legs. “You only wear those shoes when you’re expecting a gentleman caller, as we used to say.” Her thick brown eyebrows worked overtime on her face, implying overtly what she was pretending was covert. “Or when you are expecting to have a bit of a sleepover.” Her face broke into a conspiratorial grin.

“Oh, these,” she looked down at the loud orange heels, adorned with a circle of rhinestones. She had chosen them especially to complement her actual date’s impressive height. “Well, I just bought a new blouse and I haven’t had time to fully coordinate my wardrobe…” She felt an itchy bump rise up on the back of her neck.

Angela leapt on the lie. “You mean to say Dr. Maura Isles, the most organized woman I know, who has ordered her entire closet by color, size, country of origin, and relative dressiness could not find a particular set of heels and…happened,” she leaned on the word, “to end up with the shoes I only see out when you go on dates?”

Maura sighed, walked forward, and put her bag on the counter. Angela was accurate though Maura could not divulge the reality of her evening. She couldn’t be sure Jane’s mother would not be mortally wounded by the news that her daughter had participated in a lesbian fling with her best friend. Maura tried to hedge her bets. Some truth was always better than no truth at all, right?

“You are correct in observing they do provide a certain amount of height and shapeliness to my legs that many men find attractive. And…yes,” she admitted. “I did have a date tonight. But it wasn’t that hot,” she added quickly. 

“I knew it,” Angela all but shouted, then took another swig of her wine. Maura looked over and grimaced. The bottle was almost empty and the label was from a vineyard Maura knew for a fact had burned down a few years ago, making the vintage exceptionally rare. But this was her guest. 

Jane’s mother was too busy enjoying the wine to notice Maura’s annoyance. “So, what happened? Was he a cad? Too forceful? Live with his parents?”

Maura looked aside, then walked over the couch and made a show of rearranging the pillows. They were neat and crisply placed as per Angela’s specifications, for the woman’s taste was not always on point but her staging often was accurate. 

“Actually, I was stood up.” She couldn’t look Angela in the face and admit her humiliation, the trigger for the rest of the night’s activities. 

“Oh Maura, sweetie, that’s awful.” Maura heard Angela stand up and walk over to her. She tugged Maura into sitting on the couch and took out one of the folded blankets from underneath, tucking it around the smaller woman in a gesture of obviously maternal affection. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really,” replied Maura. She drooped her head towards her lap.

Angela pressed on. “Come on. You’ll feel better if you tell me,” she said in a sing-song tone. Maura wished she had Jane’s confidence. She could hear her best friend responding in that same tone, “No I wonnn’t,” as a way of shutting down her over-inquisitive mother. But Maura had no such resistance and perhaps an ear was welcome.

“His name was Willian Fornier,” she began. “He preferred to be called Bill and was quite adamant that I use that name whenever we spoke prior to today. I met him at a pathology conference three weeks ago in Texas.”

“Oh, right, I think Jane mentioned you’d met a man down there. Well, it was very nice for him to come up to see you. But what happened?”

Maura had been rather excited when she returned from San Antonio, filled with stories of all the new techniques in extracting biological materials from insects and other wild animals that had eaten cadavers. The sheer number of horrible vomiting sounds Jane had made in response forced Maura to change the topic of conversation to Bill. Jane seemed less disgusted by the man, though she was not nearly as happy Maura was to find someone who could accurately detect and appreciate decomp the way Maura did. 

She wasn’t his type, he’d confessed at the conference, but he found her so alluring and different that he just had to get to know her better. He was of course her type: tall, sandy haired and green eyed, a bit of scruff that appeared in a handsome, manly way at the end of the day. His shirts had been silk, his suits Armani. She had been taken aback by the force of his come-on and the way he subtly worked her into being around him as often as possible. She’d been down there for four days and they had spent almost every minute together. It had been a beautiful whirlwind that she hadn’t wanted to leave.

And the sex was equally whirlwind. He had been forceful and possessive, tossing her body around and moving her limbs to give him the most access, heedless of her pleasure. She wasn’t always so quick to bed a man but this time it was all she wanted. So when he proposed a second tryst, this time in Boston, she had been all too eager.

“I…don’t know,” she said. A lump formed in her throat. “I made the hotel reservations. I got us a table at the Capital Grill. I sent a taxi to the airport and I know he arrived safely. But when I arrived at the restaurant, he wasn’t there.”

“But sweetie,” interrupted Angela. “He’s also a doctor. Why are you paying for all of his expenses?”

“Well, it was the least I could do,” Maura replied. “I mean, he did pay to come visit and he said he’d reimburse me when it was time to pay the check.” The lump didn’t dissolve. 

“I…I waited for thirty minutes alone in the restaurant. I called him twice and it went right to voicemail. I even called his office and had him paged.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Eventually, the maître de came over with a note. Bill had called the restaurant for me.”

“What was his excuse,” Angela demanded. Jane had asked almost the same thing. Her voice was just as furious. Her tone was just as compassionate. The two women, mother and daughter, were more alike when they cared to admit, especially when it came to Maura. 

“He just said I wasn’t his type. That was it.” The note, written in a hasty script on the restaurant stationary, was not something she would have anticipated in a million years. It had been so abrupt that Maura had nearly broke down from shame right there. She knew the waiters had been whispering about the woman who planned a romantic dinner but who sat alone while her appetizer congealed in front of her. She had waved them off over a dozen times as they tried to bring her wine or more food and she had replied, more nervously and with less conviction every time, that she was waiting for someone.

“What did you do,” said Angela. Her voice was still angry, but softer. She reached out and squeezed Maura’s hand.

“I…called the hotel and tried to cancel the reservation, but it was too late to get a refund. I did describe what he looked like, though, and I asked them to make sure he didn’t stay the night.”

“Good,” said Angela firmly.

“Then I paid for dinner, or at least tried to. They felt so badly for me that they gave me the whole meal on the house. Apparently I was so…pathetic that they couldn’t make me pay.”

“Oh sweetie, you’re not pathetic at all. What do you care that some guy who calls himself Bill, like he was some sort of…” she fumbled for the word, “car mechanic instead of a doctor decided to be a total ass. You’re not his type? That’s because you’re too good.”

Maura repressed tears with a sad smile. “That’s just what Jane said. Well, with a bit more profanity. I went there afterward and we had dinner.” 

Jane above all over knew the deep insecurities that Maura held about her likeableness, her ability to make friends, and her fears of being alone for the rest of her life because of her social awkwardness. Being abandoned in such a hard way had brought every one of those fears to the surface and Jane had spent several…Maura admitted to herself…wonderful minutes hugging Maura and trying to convince her otherwise. 

Angela gave a snort. “Well, I may not like her language but my daughter is right about you and I hope you listened! It’s going to take a special type of man to understand and appreciate you. You’re like…” she looked upwards, shook her head, and grimaced. Her gold hoop earrings glinted in the light. “You’re like an aged Romano, the kind of stuff they don’t serve at restaurants because it’s too sharp.”

Maura shook her head. “So food that no one wants to eat?”

“That’s because most people don’t know how to cook with it,” retorted Angela. “And it’s a shame to waste it on people whose idea of a good cheese is that sawdust they call Parmesan.” Angela all but spat out the word. “You need someone who can appreciate your…uniqueness. Your flavor. You keep finding men who like American cheese, Maura. You need a gourmand.”

Maura nodded. “Thank you, Angela.” The metaphor had stretched as far as it would go, she hoped. “I should get to bed, though. I need to catch up on paperwork tomorrow.”

Angela gave her a shoulder squeeze. “Of course. Sleep well. And remember,” she warned, standing up and gathering the blankets back together. “Just because something happens today does not mean it will happen every day. The right person is there.” 

“I hope so,” Maura replied, and made her way upstairs, now letting a few tears flow, safe from another set of eyes.

Within her bedroom, she performed her nightly ritual. First, she carefully cataloged the items in her purse, ensuring each tube of lipstick was capped firmly, all change placed in a porcelain shell on her dresser, and her phone plugged in on her nightstand. A message showed on its screen, one she hadn’t noticed in the hours since she left the restaurant. It was a single line from Bill, sent thirty minutes after she left the restaurant. “I’ve reconsidered. Call for the best night you’ll have in months.” Then, another 30 minutes later. “Remember I’ve had you already. I know what makes you tick.” And finally, “You know no one else will find you attractive.” She gave a snort and deleted the messages. 

Finally, Maura disrobed and realized she still smelled faintly of sex as she slipped off her panties and threw them in the clothes hamper. Thank god Angela hadn’t said anything. It made the little deception easier. Then again, Maura told herself as she moved the blouse and skirt into the dry cleaning container, Maura did have a finer-trained nose than the average person. The scent was undetectable to the untrained, she decided.

Maura ran the shower in the master bathroom and a few cold minutes later, stepped into the stream. As she washed, she ran her fingers over a few tiny red lines, marks of passion Jane had left on her as she ravaged…Maura shook her head under the stream. Ravaged was imprecise. Claimed was closer. That had been the word she wanted, the passion coming forth as a gift to Maura. She ran her fingertips over the scratches, noting the secondary clotting mechanism that had already come into place. They were not deep enough to scar and they were unlikely to become infected. She patted at them gently with a washcloth to avoid disturbing the scabs.

Maura closed her eyes and began to run the floral shampoo through her hair. She didn’t want to recall the encounter but knew she would need to journal it later. Best to organize her thoughts now, right? But even after she finished her second wash and added her conditioner, she couldn’t bring herself to reimagine what she had done with Jane. The emotion preoccupying her was that isolation and humiliation she had felt in the restaurant. Was that more important to her, she tried asking herself, than the act of making love? No answer was forthcoming. Ordinarily she might use the shower to continue her contemplation but she was hit with a wave of exhaustion. She turned off the shower, finished her toilette, and slipped into a pair of blue-grey silk pajamas.

She reached into the top of her closet where she kept her jewelry safe, or at least, that was what she told everyone who asked. She placed her earrings within and removed her journal, the one she had told Jane about when she was leaving. It was a white, soft-covered book edged with gold leaf. It had been intended as some sort of private inventory of her thoughts, but she lived in fear of someone discovering what she was actually thinking. Somehow, a catalog of her lovers and experiences was less revealing. She had been cautious to keep it a secret from every one with whom she had shared a bed. Too tempting a prize, she knew, for the average male ego. She began storing it in the safe when one gentleman had caught a glimpse and tried to wrest it from her, only dissuaded when she afforded him a glimpse and explained it was a diary of, “female related occurrences”. Sure enough, male squeamishness as anything related to her menstrual cycle had spurred his instant disinterest. And it was not enough of a lie to trigger hives! From then on, though, she’d locked up the book and made her notes when she knew no one was watching.

She opened it up to the most recent entry. That from Bill. She glanced at the columns and appraised her encounter. Zero orgasms, she noted, and zero acts of foreplay or cunnilingus. He had been insistent on her performing oral sex on him, which she did with some expectation of reciprocity. None was forthcoming. He instead had then engaged in acrobatic sex that left her, she noted, unsatisfied. Perhaps it was best he didn’t sleep with her again. She had been so caught up in his energy that she’d neglected her own needs. It was unlike her. 

From within her nightstand she retrieved a gold ringed black pen. It was an expensive make she had received after she graduated medical school. It wrote smoothly in the way she expected a doctor would write. Confident. Assured. Cleanly. Well, writing prescriptions would never be something she did as a medical examiner but it somehow fit the task.

She removed the pen cap, then hesitated. The act suddenly seemed so crass. What she had done with Jane had been, she clenched her jaw and swallowed hard, so beautiful and special that it didn’t belong on the same page as that last encounter. She used her executive decision making and a bit of scientific explanation. It was a different form of encounter, so it should have its own page. She drew a dashed line under William’s name and turned to the next page, where the appropriate headings were waiting for her input.

Maura took a breath, then wrote on the first empty line, “Jane Rizzoli” in a solid, fluid motion. She moved over to the next column, labeled “orgasms”. She wrote in a stylized number four, then let the pen sit on the page. A pool of ink formed at the nib and she pulled the pen up again, then capped it. She grabbed a tissue and blotted up the excess ink, but it smeared a little anyway. The ink ran into the next columns and, as Maura looked ahead, soaked through into seven pages. A suspicious person would call this a sign but Maura suspected it was an indication of her exhaustion. Clearly, this would have to wait until tomorrow.

She tucked herself into bed and let her dreams take her. They were, blessedly, of neither Jane nor Bill. They were of ligaments and tendons, perfect lines of flesh to hold everything together.

/--\\__/--\\__/--\\__/--\\__/--\\__/--\\__

The weekend passed without event, at least where Jane was concerned. She had spent a frustrating amount of time alone in her apartment, trying to clean out all the signs of the time she spent with Maura. Two glasses of water perched on either side of her bed. Containers of pasta that had been put away just enough to keep from triggering Maura’s exceptionally neat side, now needing to be repackaged into a more durable form. Pots she had shoved into the dishwasher before they were properly soaked, again to get them off the table to appease Maura, were now being scoured with all of Jane’s frustration.

Certainly Maura had wanted Jane enough to clean her kitchen in the most cursory way possible. They couldn’t just have retired to the bedroom. Oh no, in between that opening kiss and their lovemaking had to be a quick round of cleaning. The dishes had to go away. The pasta had to be covered. But Jane had whispered things in Maura’s ear and run her fingertips up and down her bare arms enough times to fully memorize the patterns of goosebumps. Maura had wrapped herself around Jane and pressed her against the refrigerator for a passionate, deep kiss that had sent Jane’s head spinning. God, she didn’t know Maura could be like that, so…much. So free. Jane gritted her teeth and ran another burst of hot water over the copper bottom of the saucepan. How had it gone so damn wrong?

She recounted the night: they had been talking, right? Maura had come over after her non-date with some asshole and was feeling rightfully sorry for herself. What had Jane done? Feed her, of course. Jane had been throwing together a last minute pasta with meat sauce and some leftover greens in an approximation of something her mother wouldn’t hate if ma showed up at the door. Hell, Jane half expected it when the doorbell rang as she was banging the sauce off the spoon. But when she was wiping the food off her hands and popped open her door, it was Maura, dressed perfectly and looking far from perfect.

Bill. Some guy. He had hurt her friend and dear one in the way Maura tended to fear the most: made her feel like a social nobody and an outcast. Made her forget she was a brilliant, beautiful, successful, compassionate woman and instead reduced her to the girl in boarding school who ate her lunch alone with a textbook to hide from her loneliness. It enraged Jane almost as much as every villain who had tried to hurt Maura. Not as much as Dennis when he tried to murder Maura, of course, but enough that she swore she’d get her pals at the police to track this guy down and arrest him on something they made up. Maura demurred. Another sign of her good nature.

There had been a few moments of physical reassurance before Maura brushed her off and Jane resumed cooking. Maura sat there, toying with the plates and silverware, trying to be distracting by giving the history of cutlery evolution in the Middle Ages until Jane shut down the line of discussion with a snark. Not too hard. Enough to bring Maura to that frustrated but tolerant tone that Jane recognized so well. And then they ate, quietly.

Jane stopped scrubbing and itched her forehead, leaving what she was sure was a rusty smear of soap across her olive skin. When had it been during the meal when things had changed? She put her hands down on the sink and let the scouring pad into the basin, then let out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. It seemed so sudden and yet so…Maura. Calculated, Jane recognized, but then pushed it aside. Maura was calculating when it came to sex, or so she said, but Jane recognized in retrospect a defense when she saw it. Trying to dismiss the intimacy with mechanics was classic Maura. Jane had been too hurt to see it.

Maura had finished the plate of pasta and walked to the sink, rinsed it, and put it in the dishwasher. Jane hadn’t finished but she recognized the sound of her dishwasher being rearranged into Maura’s nigh military precision. Jane let out a snort that flung a fragment of sauce onto the plate, an act Maura had blessedly not witnessed. It would have led, after all, to a discussion of Einstienella or whatever bacteria lived in her mouth.

Maura had noticed the laugh and replied, “What? You think it’s funny that I optimize your dishwasher so you don’t have to do more work later? You think it’s funny that I want to make my best friend happy so she doesn’t have to do a chore she hates?” A hurt had ended up in her voice that Jane didn’t like at all. Jane had swallowed quickly, the ball of pasta pushing past the lump in her throat as Jane all but fled to Maura’s side.

“No, not at all. It’s funny that you do this even when you know I wouldn’t do it. It’s funny that you…care about these things in spite of the world not.” Jane didn’t like the words coming out of her mouth, so she put her hands on Maura’s shoulders and turned the smaller woman around to face her. “Maura, sometimes I laugh because I don’t know what else to do. You are so different than everything else in my life and I can’t believe I get to be around you.” Maura didn’t look up. Jane tried to stop floundering for words. “You’re like an exotic…bird who landed on my window instead of a pigeon…and I…need to stop,” sighed Jane. The floundering continued, at least she thought so.

“Thank you for caring about my dishes. Thank you for being organized. Thank you for being part of my life and trying to make it better. And anyone who doesn’t see how special those things make you doesn’t deserve you.”

Maura had shrugged off Jane’s hands and looked up at her friend, her blue-hazel eyes holding a gleam she’d never seen before.

“By that logic, the only person who deserves me is you.”

And then the kiss. Maura’s mouth pressed against Jane and for a split second Jane contemplated breaking contact. Then there was another moment of determining whether Maura was inebriated so as to avoid anything seedy. Then there was a reminder that Maura was struggling with being rejected and giving any indication she wasn’t enjoying this would be terrible. And then there were several seconds of absolutely relishing every blissful moment of contact as Maura gently, and then more fiercely locked herself against her friend.

She let Maura break the kiss and ease back down. Maura stood for a moment, gazing at Jane with half-lidded eyes. Then, she pivoted on a single stiletto and nearly fled towards the living room table where she had carefully placed her things.

“After a rejection that accessed deeply-held insecurities, it would be logical for me to seek confirmation of my desirability from a sympathetic second party,” began Maura, her voice attempting a scientific analysis in a tone that betrayed something akin to barely suppressed panic. “However, I should have considered the acceptability of my actions and the willingness of my partner before engaging you in an unsolicited act of physicality.”

Maura tried to grab her purse and make a rapid, face-saving exit. Instead, her shaking hands fumbled the beige leather bag. A cascade of high-end cosmetics, delicate applicators, neatly-organized receipts, and an embarrassing row of ribbed yellow condoms scattered onto the floor. Maura mumbled a rare profanity in an even rarer African language, crouched down, and began scooping her belongings back into the bag’s gaping maw. 

Jane finally caught up to Maura and gently tugged her to standing. Maura, for once, did not resist. Instead she sagged backwards and let Jane wrap her arms around her. The dark haired detective was so baffled and aroused and concerned she had absolutely no idea which emotion to tackle first. Again, she adjusted her friend to face her, then reconsidered and led Maura to the couch. They sat down, facing each other. Maura pulled a pillow onto her lap and hugged it like a security blanket. She looked so absolutely pathetic that Jane moved closer until their knees were touching.

“Maura. Unsolicited is never the right word with you, unless it is advice on my health or clothing or eating habits or…,” Jane noticed the hole she was digging herself into. “Okay, when it’s advice about me. But you are always welcome, physically, socially, and emotionally. I have never shied away from physical contact. Hell, I can’t count the number of times that I wanted to wrap you up in my arms to take care of you.”

“But you’ve never tried to kiss me before. In the United States, a hug and a kiss represent two vastly different levels of implied intimacy. Without a romantic or sexual inclination, you would never think to kiss me on the mouth. If we were in rural Australia, you might consider a lip-based kiss an acceptable form of greeting...” Maura rested her chin on the edge of the decorative pillow, still not meeting Jane’s eyes.

Jane reached out a careful hand and put it on Maura’s wrist. “I think we’d both agree you were doing a lot more than saying hi, especially since you’ve been here for almost an hour.” Jane modulated the teasing in her voice to the barest possible level. This was not the time to provoke a defensive response. “Which leaves us with the conventional Western interpretation.”

Maura didn’t respond, instead fluttering her fingers against the faux satin surface of the upholstery. Jane could see the logical wheels grinding against each other in the brilliant scientist’s head, but Maura remained silent. Jane took her own, detective-based approache.

“You have a romantic or sexual inclination towards me,” stated Jane gently.

Maura nodded, sinking further into the couch. Jane despaired of her friend wedging herself between the couch cushions and disappearing like a grumpy remote control. 

Jane rifled through her brain for the correct response. Up until this moment, she hadn’t considered Maura as anything more than a best friend, yet the kiss was physically arousing and the thought of continuing their physical encounter extremely desirable. There was something absolutely alluring now about this vulnerable, suddenly sexual creature…woman…person in her apartment. So Jane took the logical step. She put a long fingertip under Maura’s chin and kissed her back. Deeply, passionately, and unhesitatingly, with the petite blonde leaning in to be more aggressive in turn. Then it was her turn to back down again.

“I think the feeling is mutual,” Jane replied. 

Jane punctuated her point with another kiss. Maura didn’t pull away, yet again, but she was not as yielding. Jane stopped kissing her and watched Maura take a slow, shuddering breath. Her voice evened out to her normal scientific demeanor. 

“I doubt that is the case,” replied Maura primly. “You consider yourself heterosexual, with no historical or current evidence to demonstrate otherwise. A romantic inclination towards any woman, including me, would be deeply out of character. Besides, if you had felt this way, you would have acted on it. That is how you are.”

Jane recognized the opening for partial offense and rose to the occasion, not moving from her hold on Maura’s body. “What do you mean, who I am? Pushy? Aggressive? Slutty,” she purred in an offended growl. 

Maura parried as Jane had hoped. “I mean you are more likely to pursue someone sexually if you sense interest in that person or if you are driven yourself. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course. I believe in sexual pursuits. I therefore believe you didn’t have this attraction you speak of. But thank you for trying to make me feel better.” Her wan smile matched her hedged words.

“Or maybe I respected you too much to make a move over a dead body,” retorted Jane. “Or suspected you weren’t homosexual at all because of the number of men who have found their way into your bed.” She waggled her eyebrows, then let her tone soften, “Or maybe I didn’t have any way of recognizing what I felt until you helped me see it.”

Maura mulled this over. She entwined her left hand with Jane’s right and used her fingers to trace across the knuckles. Her fingers, her doctor’s hands, were so soft and so skilled. Jane found herself wondering what those hands could do. Then, to her continual amazement, she had started to become more aroused. Intensely so. Talk about recognizing new emotions.

After a few more moments, Maura replied, “We didn’t know about the connection patterns of neurons until Ramon y Cajal used his famous stain to show them. And we never would have learned about the functions of certain areas of the brain without advanced fMRIs. So…it is possible…we don’t always see something until we have the technology to detect what we’ve missed.”

Thank god for Maura’s logic and her ability to convince herself of something she was half convinced of, anyway. “See? You’re just like the Ramone in the Hall,” eliciting an eye roll of course for the deliberate butchering of the comment, “letting me see a connection I couldn’t find before.”

Maura gripped her hand tighter and looked at Jane with a ferocious intensity Jane had almost never seen. “I would very much like to kiss you more.”

“By all means,” said Jane. And then Maura leaned in to kiss her, then pushed them both horizontal on the couch. Jane noticed how light, how lithe Maura was. How her body nestled perfectly on Jane’s. How not-awkwardly-at-all Maura moved when she was making out with someone. Jane absolutely loved it. Every second. No doubts at all. 

Maura’s hands began to roam over Jane’s body, though between the couch and Jane’s clothing she could do little more than trace the lines of her elbows and curve of her neck. Those were still lovely. And Jane found the small of Maura’s back, her sculpted upper body, and the softness of Maura’s lips on her own. She decided it was totally unsatisfactory.

She stopped kissing and put her hand on the side of Maura’s face. “I feel a little like I’m trying to sneak you into my parents’ house on a first date and keep them from noticing I have company.” Maura grinned. That sly smile, her flushed face and hands, and everything like that screamed that Jane was making the right choice.

They slid off the couch and Maura straightened her skirt, brushed back her hair, and surveyed the kitchen. 

“But we have to clean up first,” stated the petite blonde, with calculated disapproval. “Do you know almost 100% of these buildings hold roaches? The average cockroach can live happily on the glue on the back of a postage stamp. This could feed a f-“

“Oh GROSS Maura,” all but shouted Jane. Then she did something she’d never been allowed to do before. She yanked Maura close and kissed her hard. “I swear if you talk about roaches one more time when I am trying to get you into bed, I will go back to the couch and refuse to help you take my bra off.”

Maura looked…scared for a moment. Jane cursed herself. They were moving too fast. She knew it. But Maura pushed aside her resistance. “That’s fair. And you will promise never to leave a house full of dirty dishes when I am trying to get you into bed.”

And that was how Jane came to be scrubbing her favorite pot down to the enamel. She gave the pot another wash and sighed loudly. She wasn’t any closer to an answer, though. She still didn’t understand how the two of them had gone from flirtation to shutdown so quickly. It wasn’t a one night stand, so she couldn’t blame lack of emotional connection. She had wanted Maura intensely, no matter how unexpected it was. The feeling was absolutely mutual, so it wasn’t beer goggles. The sex had been pretty damn good for a first time, if a little fumbling, but that was endearing. Jane threw the scouring pad into the sink, stalked over to her couch, and sat down.

What the hell was she going to do? These were the kinds of problems she could pour over with Maura, except Maura was the subject of these problems. Post-shooting Maura’s father Paddy, Jane had sort of been able to confide in her family, Korsack, and Frost, but an act of violence wasn’t the same as an act of sex. It was ironic, she mused, that she spent so much time around violence that they were not bothered by a bloody body lying in a street but couldn’t talk about intercourse without cringing. Ugh, intercourse. She sounded like Maura. So where the hell could she muse things over?

It was an act of desperation but the alternative was sitting in her apartment. She’d found her best black and white suit, the one that had snagged Maura two dates when they swapped clothes, and did her best to look…not out of place. Jane pulled up to the lesbian bar where she had caught the lesbian killer all those years ago and sat in her car, then turned off the engine. She rested her head on the steering wheel. She’d have chosen another bar but there weren’t any in the city limits and she felt odd driving off to Woburn or Walpole or some other W-sounding named town to find people who might understand. All she could do was hope no one recognized her. And if they did, well, she could just be there doing research, right?

The door’s line arched nearly around the building and she sighed, getting ready to turn around and spend the right of the night eating a pint of cherry jubilee and watching terrible police shows while petting Joe Friday. It was infuriating to watch them do the worst police work ever while still solving the case. Nevermind that she’d done something equally bad all the times she’d broken into something that could have been searched with a warrant. Thank god the courts were lenient. But her backup plan was interrupted by a shrill whistle.

“Hey. You. Lady, come over here.” A built, stocky woman with a crew cut and a Dorchester accent gestured for Jane to come over. Jane sauntered as casually as she could to the front of the line and stood next to the velvet rope.

“Yeah. I recognize you. I’ve seen you in the newspapers.” Jane nodded, trying to keep from slowly backing away and triggering this woman’s likely killer instincts. “You’re the one who helped catch Paddy Doyle.” Paddy was a legend in Dorchester and the locals often found him more appealing than the police alternatives. She wished suddenly for her gun or a nightstick or even a really sharp key on her key chain. This could go all sorts of poorly.

The stock woman bent forward and her voice went softer. “He got my uncle killed. Left my aunt a widow and my cousins…they weren’t the same after that. Anyone who goes up against him deserves to go wherever she wants.”

She leaned back and straightened up, then unclipped the velvet rope. “Go on in. VIP access on my command. Just say Kat sent you.” A few women in the front of the line yelled and cursed their protests. The other bouncer, a muscled young Asian woman, gave a look not out of place in a Kung Fu movie and pushed the crowd back roughly.

“You don’t like it? You go solve crimes and get shot at,” spat Kat. “I don’t see any of you going after murderers. Most of you couldn’t defend yourself from a fucking poodle.”

Jane recalled Maura’s admiration of poodles as brilliant animals with hypoallergenic fur, the perfect type for any children who might need a dog without triggering their allergies. Wow, it was like Maura had infested her brain with useless facts. Jane nodded at the bouncer, grateful for the woman’s discretion about Jane’s actual reason for getting inside, and eased herself into the packed club.

The décor had shifted wildly from when Maura and Jane had gone under cover. The feel was now a bit more Dirty Robber than posh café, though not quite as worn down and grimy. Some of the furniture looked like it had been cleaned in the last century, for example. She pushed through the crowd uneasily and sought out a table. Most were occupied by couples or crowds, with the occasional woman arrayed in a way to attract the eye of a woman who might be looking that way. Jane was attracted, but not in the way she had been to Maura. Ugh. She needed to maybe stop thinking about the reason she was here.

Frustrated, she turned around and jammed herself into the bar next to two dozen other women in skirts and suits. Eventually a wiry black bartender in a slinky black half tux took notice of Jane and moved over. 

“Ah, you’re the woman Kat mentioned. Drinks on the house for a friend, eh?” The bartender winked and gestured behind her. “Name your poison.”

Jane sighed. “What do you have for drinking away a confusing sexual encounter with your best friend?”

To Jane’s horror, the bartender whirled around and rang a triangle. The entire club swiveled towards the bar in unison and cheered, some with raised glasses and others with an envious look in their eyes. Jane wished she could sink into the floor and do her best impression of a puddle of slime. 

The bartender returns and bent over towards Jane. “Sorry. Bar tradition. We’ve got to ring the triangle whenever a girl finally gets her best friend into bed. And don’t worry, confusing is par for the course. You know she’ll come around like all the others did.” 

Jane scowled. “What others? And I didn’t do the getting. She did.” She nearly leapt over the bar and grabbed the thin black woman by the wrist when she tried to pick up the metal bar again. Jane guessed there was another special chime for a first timer and she wanted none of it. “Ring that thing again and I’ll find some way to shove your head through it.”

A bit mortified at her outburst, Jane sat down as the bartender rubbed her wrist. “Look, I’m sorry. This has been a really odd weekend.”

“Normally I’d get the girls to hustle you out of here for sneezing on me but I think I’ll make an exception for a VIP. Just settle down.” The black woman’s face went from stony to softer when Jane nodded and then put her head on the bar with crossed arms.

“I have no idea what I’m doing,” she mumbled into her arms. “It was so spontaneous and so damn nice. One minute we’re eating pasta and the next we’re making out on the couch. And then three hours later she walks out after telling me it’s a mistake.”

A drink appeared next to her. It looked and smelled a lot like scotch. Jane lifted her head and groped the glass, then sipped it carefully. It burned with a lemon aftertaste followed by a burst of sweetness. The bartender gave a sympathetic grin. “It’s called the BFFT. Let’s just say I have made enough of these for it to be a house special.”

Jane took another drink. “BFFT?” She let out a sign. “Best friend. First time. Got it.” 

The bartender nodded. “I’ve seen a lot of girls come in here in just your state. Usually on the younger side of course, getting that first youthful experiment out of the way, but we always have some late bloomers.”

Jane drained the rest of the glass. “That’s just it. I don’t feel like I’m blooming late at all. I’ve literally never looked at another woman and have never felt the urge to have sex with one. But when she kissed me, it was all I wanted to do.”

The bartender shrugged. “Everyone gave Ellen’s ex, you know the one…” Jane shrugged back. Pop culture was a mystery and gay culture was not even on her radar. “Well, anyway. They broke up and the women went back to men. She said something about it being the exception rather than the rule. She loved the person, not the gender.” The darker woman appraised Jane, who pushed the empty glass forward.

“You love her, right?” Jane nodded. “And if she didn’t love you, you wouldn’t be here. You’d be sleeping it off with some guy.”

“But as friends,” Jane added quickly. “She was very clear about that. As family.”

The bartender chuckled. “It turns from one to the other fast. Like I said, I’ve seen a few of these come in here.”

“So what happened, um,” Jane glanced at the tuxedo top for a nametag and didn’t find one.

“Lisbeth,” said the bartender. She snapped her fingers a few times and a few more black-clad serving staff appeared. “I need to take a break,” she commanded them. “Keep the bar happy.” Lisbeth turned back to Jane. “Let’s go take five.” Jane slid off the barstool and followed the tall woman around the bar and back through the crowded kitchen, finally pushing into a quiet back room. 

“You’re not going to kill me,” quipped Jane. She surveyed the room. It was an office stacked with papers and computer equipment, probably fifteen different things she could use to get away if push came to shove.

“Hardly. My boss would kill me if I got blood on her papers. But I figured I wanted to talk to you and not ruin our voices over the music.”

“Thanks,” said Jane. “But why the special treatment? I mean, you serve out however many house specials a week, right?”

Lisbeth smiled broadly. “Call it a bit of woman’s intuition. A hunch.” She sat down on a brown swivel chair and leaned back. “You have no one else you can talk to. Now, I’m not going to speak for those girls who find out they’re gay in the middle of Utah, but I’ve seen a lot of first timers. Most of these girls have female friends, or at least gay male friends. Most have someone they can talk to. But you? You have no one. You came to a bar you’ve never visited and poured your heart out to a bartender.”

“God, I’m like a bad country song, except with lesbians,” moaned Jane. She flopped into a threadbare easy chair and bumped her head on the filing cabinet.

“Eh, those songs exist for a reason. And it’s a nice break from the usual monotony of whining girls. You’re not like them, right? You’re too butch to admit your feelings but not so butch you pretend they aren’t there. You have a feminine side too. I like that. So talk.”

Jane felt her words spill out. “She kissed me after a date went bad. I kissed her. We went into the bedroom. We had sex for a few hours and then I got an explanation about how she thought we shouldn’t do it again and how it ranked in her top ten sexual experiences. God, she told me she keeps a journal. A goddamn journal of her sexual escapades. So not only am I being pushed away but I’m also being counted like weapons seized in a drug raid.”

The bartender nodded. “She’s usually standoffish, isn’t she? But around you she lets her guard down? And I am guessing there have been a few times when you’ve betrayed that.”

Jane nodded miserably, thinking of insults, misunderstandings, and of course, shooting Maura’s dad. “I haven’t been the best friend all the time.”

“Well, she doesn’t expect you to be,” reassured the bartender. “But this is her most intimate self, literally and figuratively, and she was worried you’d turn on her. A smooth dominant like yourself is usually the one to start these things. That she did it as who she is?” The bartender let out a slow whistle. “That took more strength than you can understand. Of course she shut herself off.”

Jane closed her eyes and banged her head a few times against the cabinet. “But I wanted her to stay. I begged her to stay. I tried to reassure her that nothing had changed and I still loved her.”

Lisbeth shook her head in disagreement. “First off, you both know something has changed, even if the underlying emotion hadn’t. But second, she is running scared because she thinks she’s lost everything by acting on impulse. That’s not her, right?”

Jane smiled through closed eyes. “Yeah. I’ve seen her plan her pajamas so they don’t clash with her sheets.” She laughed to herself. “I am betting she didn’t intend to do this tonight because my house is mostly orange tones and she was wearing neutrals.”

Lisbeth’s voice interrupted Jane’s thoughts. “She’s out of character, she has just opened herself sexually to her best friend, and she’s suddenly in doubt. She couldn’t stay. She had to prove to herself she was still herself. She had to regain all that control and distance. She’s…retreating. Let her.”

“But if she retreats too far, I’ll never get her back.”

She heard the chair creak up and the bartender’s heels click onto the floor. “What does getting her back mean to you?”

Jane opened her eyes and also stood up. “I…don’t know. I want to keep being her friend. As for the rest, I haven’t really thought about it.” She admitted internally what she wanted more than anything else was to hold Maura and to get reassurance they could still talk all the time. Maybe that’s what Maura wanted too?

“When you figure it out, you’ll keep her from retreating. You know how to chase and when to hang back. You’re a cop.” 

The bartender creaked open the door and ushered Jane into the club. After another drink and a few rounds of seltzer to clear out the alcohol, Jane drove herself home. It was good to turn her brain off for a while. She passed out on her bed, still in her clothes.

/--\\__/--\\__/--\\__/--\\__/--\\__/--\\__


	2. Chapter 2 - In which the title makes sense.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maura and Jane must solve a chemistry-based case while hashing out the aftermath of their sexual encounter.
> 
> Highly smutty.

Dr. Isles surveyed the scene through a red-rimmed eye. The call had come in at 4AM, possible suicide off of the Prudential building, and woken her from her third night of fitful sleep in a row. She’d been applying face masks and creams all weekend to counteract the effects of her insomnia with only minimal results. Even her favorite blue and grey dress had failed to lift her mood this early in the day. Usually she could count on a comfortable set of heels and an artful makeup presentation to spur her to her usual mood but it just wasn’t clicking into place. She was still…concerned about what she had done with Jane on Friday and even more so by her continuing inability to accurately write up their sexual encounter.

She snapped her attention back to the body, who lay face down on a cracked bit of courtyard stone. Tall, little over 6 feet by her estimation, and on the heavyset side without muscle definition. Caucasian, with brown hair, a bit of gray in it. Although hair color was an imprecise marker of age, the combination of melanin loss and the body habitus suggested a grown male adult instead of a prematurely young teen.

The corpse was lying flat on the pavement, tiny bits of his body and brain spattered in a circle around where he landed. There was already a bevy of police officers and CSIU techs attempting to catalog every scrap of tissue and clothing before the rush of the day and scavengers made off with them. Korsak and Frost were there, milling about with a cup of coffee each. But not Jane yet. Maura did not usually fret about her friend when she was late to the scene, especially on a Monday morning. Jane was not a drunkard or a layabout, but she did occasionally decide Monday mornings were just something the boys had to handle. Maybe, though, Jane was ignoring her? Or avoiding her? 

Maura shivered in spite of the warm weather. That had been her greatest fear upon initiating their sexual encounter. Perhaps Jane would find fault somehow and Maura would have both humiliated herself and lost her best friend. A complete rejection either of Maura’s entreaties or her physical appearance. However, Jane’s response had been the opposite. Open. Caring. Adoring, even. Wanting more, which Maura had not even slightly anticipated. But Maura had retreated. She couldn’t accept this was the final outcome. Emotional blowback from fraught sexual encounters could take days, perhaps weeks, to manifest and explode completely.

People were complicated. Well, at least the living people were complicated. Dead people were uncomplicated, or at least their complication stemmed not from feelings and inexplicable emotions but from physical conundrums. Hidden poisons, subtle diseases, bullet holes that could come from any number of weapons. These were all puzzles to solve and she had the tools to solve them. But attempting to discern what she should do in the face of her recent sexual escapade with her best friend was not something she could see under a magnetic scanner or a microscope. There were no texts that showed the map of the emotional heart. All she had were Netter’s maps of the coronary arteries and ventricles, wholly insufficient for the intangibles of the human mind. 

She turned her thoughts again back to the body, attempting to ascertain how he had ended up in this position. The pattern of damage suggested impact, with broken glass to match that supposition. She tilted her head upwards to meet the gaze of two people over her, preparing to ask questions that she hated answering. Frost began, “So did he fall or was he pushed?”

“You know I hate guessing, Detective Frost.” She gave him a steely eyed look that she hoped was close enough to her normal stare that he would predictably back off. He did. It was reassuring to believe she could still control her emotions or give the appearance therein. “But if I had to guess, I wouldn’t. Because I don’t guess.” He gave a cocked eyebrow towards his bulky partner, but didn’t respond.

“Well, now that CSI you has enough pictures of him, maybe we can turn them over?” asked Korsak. He leaned his bulk towards her little bit and commented, “I think it was you who told me we can see a lot about how someone died from a fall by looking at their arms. Didn’t you say that most people who fall or were pushed extend their arms as if they want to break their fall?” His tone was inquisitive and highly pleasant.

“Yes, Detective Korsak. That’s absolutely right. In numerous studies in criminal journals I have learned that approximately 90% of people who were involuntarily removed from a height do have fractures in their carpels, ulna, and radius. So I believe it would be prudent for us to turn him over and see what I detect before we bring him back to the lab.” 

It was nice to be listened to. It was nice to have a colleague who respected her. And Korsak had smiled at her through a thick but trimmed beard the whole time. He liked listening. More than Jane. She put aside another thought.

Very carefully, with gloves and effort, the detectives and uniforms nearby rolled the man over. It was not any sort of fracture that caught her eye and indicated the form of death this man had experienced. Yes, there was very obvious bruising around his face that suggested blood had pooled there before he had been removed from the building out of the window. However, there was a massive blood stain on his shirt indicating a perforation of the abdominal aorta or one of the iliac veins. It was too soon to tell. She took a glance at his extremities and noted that they were flaccid. The bones were shattered, of course, but they did not on first glance look like the result of extending his arms. They looked like pieces of plaster that had been tossed off of something and fragmented upon hitting a hard surface.

“Based on the current physical findings, I hypothesize this man was dead before he hit the ground.” She looked up and indicated a few open windows in the building above her. “Have your men search those rooms for signs of pooled blood, either cleaned or still present. I think this man sustained some other injury that resulted in a copious blood loss. Obviously I will need to have him brought back to the lab so I can do a thorough autopsy before making any final determination”

The trim black detective next to the plump older white man nudged Korsak in the side. “So unless this guy stabbed himself, almost bleed out, and threw himself out of the window, we’re looking at a murder.” He looked down at Dr. Isles. “Or would that be too much to guess?”

“You are correct, Detective Frost.” Her glare was as icy as his last name implied.

The ride back to the station was uneventful. The body had sat with her and she had made some chatter with the young morgue technician who was temping over summer vacation. He seemed pleasant enough. Happy to talk business with her, which she appreciated, though he had only rudimentary science skills and could not provide her with a sounding board for technique. He was content to lift bodies and move around, a job he said he was uniquely suited to because he had grown up on a farm and was used to slugging carcasses. Maura perhaps would have been interested at another time but her thoughts kept drifting to Jane.

Jane hadn’t phoned in or otherwise let her know what was going on all weekend. No one seemed particularly concerned that Jane hadn’t attended the scene during the hours they had spent with the body on-site. If something had happened, Maura was completely in the dark. She hated that.

Maura reached the autopsy lab and began to take this man apart and piece them back together. She changed into her scrubs, donned her safety glasses, and had the CSI techs begin categorizing every piece of bone and flesh they had detected around him.

This face had been utterly crushed by the fall and she could not see anything about his eyes, the height of his cheekbones, the width of his nose. Everything had been flattened and splattered beyond all recognition. That any of his face was still intact though suggested his falling distance was not more than five or six stories. She hadn’t heard anything about the detective search so she didn’t have any confirmation. Nonetheless, the laws of physics as applied to the human body gave her supposition some weight. She moved his face from side to side. His neck was also fractured. She couldn’t tell yet whether that was another trauma inflicted perimortem or the consequence of being unceremoniously tossed off the building. She began to remove his clothing and noted every article as she took it off.

A pair of corduroy pants, worn about the ankles but otherwise clean. Checkered socks that were beige and matched the pants. No shoes though perhaps they had come loose in the fall. A white button-down shirt with a large blood stain. No undershirt. She exposed the abdomen and noted a large incision extending from the base of the xiphoid process to his pubis. It was a long neat cut, performed with a sharp non-serrated blade. She noted evidence of healing staple wounds on either side of the incision; this man had recently had surgery and the cut went through where that incision might have been. She could not tell whether one or multiple cuts had been made, only that at least one of them was deep enough to tear through some of his internal organs. Had he been held down when this occurred? She didn’t speculate. It was too soon for that.

The x-rays came back, and then the individually categorized pieces. She had Susie and another tech attempts to help her reassemble the face from everything they could find but she knew it would be a long and tedious task. She had not found any identification in his pocket and hoped that some other member of the police force was going to succeed where she had failed. Somewhere in the midst of assembling her flesh puzzle, one of the doors swung open and she heard the familiar tap of Jane’s feet on her linoleum floor.

Her heart began to race, to the point where she knew she’d be diagnosed with tachycardia had she been attached to an EKG. It took everything she had to keep from whirling around and talking to her friend. Then again, perhaps she should play it cool. Perhaps Jane was resentful or frustrated that their encounter had ended so abruptly and that Maura had kept her distance all weekend.

“Hey Maura. We found some things that might help your investigation.” Jane moved closer and Maura stiffened. Jane was right behind her, close enough that she could feel the warm breath against her ear. She a cold shiver went through her and she stifled a sudden intake of air. It was so strange to feel this near her friend where previously it would have just been some sort of sensation, like piece of fabric brushing her knee. Dr. Isles did not look up from her work.

“That is good to hear, Detective Rizzoli. As you can see this man has suffered significant trauma and his identification will be a challenge. I know that the incredibly talented staff around me will greatly assist me in discerning this man’s identity.”

“His name is Ralph Lauren,” replied Jane. Maura heard the sound of a piece of paper being waved back and forth.

Maura stood up and faced Jane. Jane also stiffened and was looking at her with eyes so troubled, so achingly needy, that it was physically painful. It was the same expression Maura had witnessed when Maura cut Jane out of her life after the shooting of Paddy Doyle or when some little tiff separated the two of them. Maura immediately regretted forcing formality on Jane to maintain distance. Truth to be told, she didn’t want distance. She wanted it to go back to normal.

“The designer?” She tossed a look back towards the brutalized cadaver. “This man is certainly not well dressed or distinguished enough to be…”

“We know. And we suspect it’s some sort of alias. The good news is a name like that attracts enough attention that somebody’s going to remember this guy,” said Jane, directing her gaze down at the report, shielding her emotions from her inquisitive friend. “Anyway, he was working at the Pru as maintenance, handyman type guy. Started about a month ago according to the entry logs. According to his job application, he is a Caucasian male with brown hair, 5’10” and 227 pounds.”

Maura looked back at him. “227 pounds? But he’s registering at,” she glanced back at the scale. “275 pounds.”

“Well, it’s possible the ID is incorrect.” Jane shrugged and looked frustrated. “I’ll see what I can get to make things easier. Thanks a lot Maura.”

“Thank you for coming down, Jane.” Maura let the sentence hang their. Susie and the other tech excused themselves as a machine started beeping in the other room. She didn’t recognize the sound and wondered if they had somehow snuck in a new piece of equipment. She made a mental note to discuss budgeting and departmental approval of purchases.

What she didn’t know was when Susie heard Jane called “Detective Rizzoli”, she made a subtle signal. Another tech would set a handful of timers that would go off in about two minutes. It was a good way to clear the room without being obvious.

“Yeah, well, I want to make your life easier. And better.”

“And you do, Jane. Professionally, I mean.” Maura looked into Jane’s eyes and felt that overwhelming urge to kiss her once again. She didn’t even know why anymore. It just was this deep need, like wanting to vomit.

“Well, that’s why we make such a great team, right? We complement each other professionally.” The cadence of the words was bitter and Jane continued looking hurt. Maura accepted this would not be the time to bring everything back to normal. Jane checked her watch and Maura suspected she fibbed when she said, “Well, I told Korsak I’d be upstairs in 10 minutes and it’s been 10.5 and you know how he is about timing. So I’ll see you later.”

She strode out of the room and Maura looked wistfully over her shoulder as she left. She looked back towards the man on her table and shook her head. Focus had been lost and she found herself not blaming Jane but instead blaming herself. The flesh puzzle would have to wait.

Maura stripped her gloves off and threw them in the trash can, washed up in the massive sink and retreated to her office. Looking around the tasteful furniture she decided against sitting down and ruining one of the priceless leather backed chairs. But she didn’t feel like changing out of her scrubs. They felt comfortable and familiar. They reminded her that she was a scientist and a doctor, not some passionate, half cocked creature who is likely to act on her emotions and set aside her scientific instincts. But then she looked at the tailored suits and high heels she diligently hung in the closet when she came to work. Those were her too, right? Those were the signs that she was a woman and a classy one at that. Constance had taught her the meaning of class, refinement, dignity.

Dignity. Maura had always had that, right? Integrity. Control. Finding out she was the daughter of a mobster had thrown some of that into chaos. She remembered the day Paddy Doyle had come to her and slit his hand open to prove that she was his blood. And she remembered her panic, and Jane’s comfort. Jane knew her. She knew the true Maura, the one who wasn’t just a set of comfortable scrubs that shielded her from the world. Jane knew the woman who was hanging in the closet, the woman who felt more at home in a boutique than in a mall. The woman who defied the stereotype of the frumpy pathologist and instead embodied the grace and style typically associated with so-called higher doctors. And now, Jane knew her body when it was undressed.

Maura gave in and stripped off her scrubs, carefully placing them in a bag she kept in her office for just that purpose. She slipped into the private showers she’d had installed a few years ago and scrubbed herself to remove the scent of deco. She chose a sandalwood soap with tiny fragments of coconut bark to act as an exfoliant, with lemon extract to pull the formaldehyde scent out of her pores. There was nothing sexy about the smell of formaldehyde and she realized she wanted to feel sexy.

Jane had succeeded so well in making her feel like that. When Jane walked her into the bedroom, Maura expected to be thrown on the bed and have her clothing ripped off. When they had gone undercover at the lesbian bar, Jane had discussed how she would be the man because she was bossy. And that has led to a discussion about Maura’s bossiness implying she could also be the man. As it worked out, Jane always looked that little bit more masculine, though the hint of womanly curves through a fitted t-shirt tempered that masculinity.

What had that bartender said, or at least what had Jane recounted to her? “The boys must eat you up. You’re just like them. Dominant energy.” 

All of those conversations had echoed in Maura’s head when she crossed into her friend’s familiar bedroom. Instead of ravaging, Jane had gently pressed Maura back onto the bed and kissed her. The dark-haired woman then spent some time patiently exploring Maura’s neck with her fingertips, eventually unbuttoning Maura’s blouse just one button to access the tops of her breasts. Maura found herself less and less able to keep Jane from continuing that pattern of exploration. She almost ripped off her shirt herself when Jane finally said with a warm smile, “Would you like me to take your shirt off?

“Yes,” Maura had said, more quickly than she’d ever consented to her clothing being removed her entire sexual life. The shirt had been taken off her one button at a time. Jane’s mouth had trailed down the gap between her breasts and over the lace edge of her bra. It had been specially selected for seduction of Bill, no, he didn’t deserve the term. William. And perhaps Jane would appreciate it less than he but it didn’t matter. It made her feel sexy and beautiful. 

Jane made her way down Maura’s small stomach and stopped at her navel, then crawled her way back up to lean on Maura’s body and press her against bed for another kiss. There was so much unexpected tenderness, so much adoration and lavishness that Maura couldn’t help but reciprocate. In fact Jane seem somewhat surprised when Maura’s hands came up to trace the nape of her neck and run down her broad shoulders while they were kissing. Jane had smiled at her and tried to push her hands down again but Maura would have nothing of it. It didn’t make sense for her to be selfish when Jane was responding in exactly the way Maura had always hoped.

Maura had eventually lost out to Jane’s insistence on touching her. Maura let Jane stretch her arms out above her head, pinning her wrists in place with a careful hand, and tease her nipples through the thin fabric of her bra. Maura once again praised herself for wearing something lacy and nearly shear. As Jane’s teeth raked over her breast, little vibrations went through her areola and spread across her chest. The sensations rippled across the body until they pooled in the warmth between her legs. She didn’t suppress the moan that escaped her lips and then wondered to herself why she thought that was even a good idea. Why would she want to not demonstrate that she was enjoying herself? Wouldn’t she as a partner want to know that her partner was enjoying herself? Or himself? Another lightning flash of pleasure as Jane gently rubbed her breasts and traced along the tops of the cups.

“You know,” said Jane with a smile, “I have seen you in your underwear before. I just never expected to enjoy you so much while in it…” She reached a hand under Maura, keeping her other hand across Maura’s wrists, and unhooked the bra more dexterously then Maura had anticipated. Her bra came loose and snapped across her chest.

“Or out of it.” Jane finished. She swiftly rearranged their bodies to remove the bra, tossed the garment to the floor and silenced Maura’s protest about the expense of the garment with another deep kiss. Maura found herself being carefully explored with mouth and fingertips once again. She still wasn’t quite sure what she was doing here and why she wasn’t stopping. Neither one of them was gay. She remembered the teasing conversation they had when Jane was planning on going to the gay bar and how Maura had said Jane wasn’t her type. And yet here Jane was, making it very obvious that Maura was her type. Suddenly Maura felt ashamed. She put a hand out to stop Jane and the dark-haired woman paused, concerned.

“Maura. Did I do something wrong? Did I hurt you?” Maura looked at Jane and shook her head. 

“No. What you are doing is amazingly pleasurable. But I wanted to make sure that in spite of our conversation several years ago, I would say that you are exactly my type. You are compassionate, attentive, and very beautiful. I am incredibly happy that my first lesbian experience will be with you.” Jane gently flopped next to Maura and pulled her close, stopping the long slow passion and turning to one of more comfort.

“Maura,” Jane said, “I don’t take most of these types of conversation seriously. I know when we tease each other we do it from a place of love. You know that whenever I call you weird I appreciate you. I know whenever you call me aggressive, it’s because you appreciate how forward I am and how much I care about doing my job.” She kissed Maura’s eyelids and then the middle of her forehead. “I know if you didn’t want me to be here, you would have me walk away. And I know you have exceptional taste in all things. “

Maura smiled at the cocked eyebrow and said, “Well, I do have an extensive collection of incredibly rare masks from Ethiopia. I have a shoe collection that features limited-edition pumps. At least one of my rings has been classified as the largest professionally cut ruby in Massachusetts.” She ran her hand across the side of Jane’s face. “And I am happy to leave them all behind because I am also with the most amazing woman in all of Massachusetts. The bravest detective, the most talented police officer, my best friend, my confidante. Right now, I want you more than any possession or place in this world.”

Jane smiled. “Then please let me have you.”

Maura nodded, though she worried the interruption had change the mood or that Jane would perhaps reconsider. But when Jane dipped her head lower and wrapped her mouth around Maura’s nipple, she knew that the mood was very easily reestablished. She felt the warm tongue exploring the ridges of her breast and attending to her skin in a way that literally no man had ever done. Certainly they enjoyed her breasts and many of her male lovers would spend many happy minutes sucking on them. This was the first time she was being adored simply because her pleasure was needed. 

She always felt the men, even Ian, loved touching her because she gave them a thrill. For once, she was being touched because she was the thrill. The two women had spent many wonderful minutes with Jane alternating between Maura’s right and left breasts, sometimes sucking, sometimes gently kissing, sometimes using her tongue to swirl around the edges and then up to the tip. Maura realized that her level of arousal was becoming almost unbearable and she worried she was so soaked that she might ruin the skirt she was wearing. 

So once again she was forced to halt the delicious pleasure, looking Jane in the eye, and said, “We need to stop.”

At that, Jane almost leapt off the bed and paced away, almost against the wall, wearing an expression of confused disquiet. 

Maura replied, “No, no no. Please come back. I mean, I… I need to take my skirt off. It’s dry clean only. And I don’t think I’m going to have time to go to the dry cleaner anytime in the next few days. And I very much would like to continue what we are doing but I don’t want to worry about my clothing,” she said, rambling and almost in a panic. She was about to drive Jane away, which was the absolute worst thing in the world right now. “Please let me undress for you.”

Jane rubbed her forehead and said, “Maura. It’s a good thing that I know you so well. Because from anyone else, that would be an excuse to stop, not an urging to keep going.”

Maura did not have to undress herself. Jane slowly slipped the skirt and her underwear off of Maura, and with a bit of an eye roll, neatly tossed the underwear in one corner and the skirt of the other. “See? No liquid transfer.”

Maura felt completely exposed and at a sudden power loss. Here she was, completely naked, and Jane was completely clothed. So Maura made a passable excuse wasn’t far from the truth. “You know, I don’t know how many pairs of black pants you have. It would be a shame if you were to…”

“Why Dr. Isles,” said Jane with a broad grin, standing at the foot of the bed with her hands on her hips. “Would you like me to undress for you?”

Maura realized that in spite of seeing Jane in various states of undress, caused by everything from injuries to disease scares, she wanted to see Jane undressed for completely different reasons. Like she was looking at Jane through a new piece of equipment “I would like that very much,” she said formally.

Jane never let the smile off her face and stripped her T-shirt off in a fluid motion, tossing it to the floor. She unbuttoned her pants, and slid them off, pausing briefly to remove her socks. But she didn’t remove her bra and panties. Maura didn’t insist. She understood the allure of a little bit of accent early in the sexual encounter…

Maura’s hands roamed over her own body while she was in the shower and she noticed she was becoming aroused at the memory of their encounter. She debated pleasuring herself right there but it was both disrespectful to the cadavers next door and a great interruption of her workday. No. She might have time to indulge later. But for now, the murder would need to take precedence. Nonetheless there was nothing forcing her to go back into the lab. She figured perhaps she went upstairs and have a little food, maybe clear her mind by…well, by doing something not in the shower.

She found her way into the café where Angela was busily pouring coffee and administering various foods to all who came through her restaurant. The older woman’s eyes lit up as Maura came in and waited in line patiently behind two policemen, with whom she made awkward conversation. She shifted back and forth in her heels and looked around. She didn’t know exactly what she was looking for but she knew it wasn’t there in those two men. She fidgeted with the corner of her suit. She wished she had worn underwear that was more flattering, then dismissed the thought. There was no point wearing a thong under scrubs. It was likely they would be dreadfully uncomfortable.

“Maura,” said Angela. “I was wondering what I see you today. It seems we missed each other this morning.” The older Italian woman rapidly prepared Maura’s usual tea, adding in a tiny swirl of honey and capping it with a mint leaf that she had apparently been saving just for Maura. The blonde managed a wan smile. While she enjoyed Angela’s company, this was not the Rizzoli she was hoping to see. Jane was nowhere to be found. 

Maura considered going up stairs and instead sat herself down the café. She was always willing to be upfront and confrontational, at least where Jane was concerned, but her normal comfort was replaced with cautious reticence. The contrast between the openness of Jane’s desire and Maura’s cold rejection made Jane’s absence easily explainable. If the relationship hadn’t been damaged by the sexual act, the friendship was certainly in danger because of Maura’s fear and, in spite of her brilliance, Maura didn’t know what to do or how to fix it. 

After a few minutes of idle conversation with Angela, she excused herself back downstairs. Even if Jane wasn’t there, she had to continue her work. Once again in her scrubs, Maura dove into the cadaver and tried to forget everything.

/--\\__/--\\__/--\\__/--\\__/--\\__/--\\__

Jane Rizzoli stood in front of her desk, hands on her hips, and scowled at the two detectives in front of her. Both seemed far too amused for her taste, a feeling amplified by her frustration at Maura and her lack of coffee. Dodging her best friend meant forgoing her hourly journeys to her mother’s café, leaving Jane two cups short of her normal intake and her temper three steps closer to exploding than normal. 

“Seriously guys? Ralph Lauren? You expect me to go downstairs and tell Maura, a woman who can detect a limited-edition high heel from 100 yards, that the guy she has on her table is Ralph Lauren?”

The smirking Detective Frost turned to the similarly grinning Detective Korsak. “What can I say,” he began. “It’s nice to know we haven’t celebrity downstairs instead of the usual gang of idiots.”

“Yeah,” continued Korsak, taking up the mirth of his partner. “I mean, Boston is becoming quite the center of international fashion. And here we have a designer that literally landed on our door.” His terrible pun sent both of them chortling.

“You two…chuckleheads…know as well as I do that the guy downstairs is as much Ralph Lauren as one of you is Curt Schilling. Or three Curt Schillings,” she said, gesturing to Korsak’s paunch. He pretended to look wounded as he wrapped his arm around his stomach. “Fine. I’ll go and tell her this and hope that she doesn’t think we’re making fun of her.” She stomped out of the office, fumed in front of the perennially slow elevators, and made her journey to the basement.

When she came upstairs, the anger in her mood had dissipated and was replaced by a dull resignation. She preferred the aggravation administered by her ridiculous partners to the horrible emptiness that Maura now conjured. It had been so bad she had stopped the elevator between floors to compose herself. She thought tears would come out. Instead it was like someone had punched her right in the ribs, taking her breath away and leaving her gasping for relief.

It was worse than when she had shot Maura’s father, she realized. At least then, Maura had been angry because Jane had hurt her, requiring Jane to find a way to make amends. Jane had gotten used to doing that early in life. You don’t grow up awkward and tomboyish without being forced to apologize on regular basis for breaking a window or cursing out a nun. This time, Jane had not done anything wrong. Neither one of them had done something wrong. There weren’t apologies or amends to be made. It was an emotional impasse.

Jane tried to remind herself of Lisbeth’s admonishments. Maura was being self-protective and Jane would just have to be patient. The patience was terrible though. It was like waiting for someone to come out of surgery or waiting for the call on a flag after an instant replay. 

Jane took a breath and tried to storm back into her office, pretending to be annoyed at their continuing joke. The smiles on the two men vanished as soon as they saw her and she knew her deception was insufficient. She dropped the pretense, flopped into her office chair, and spun around once, rubbing her eyes with her fingers. God, it felt like 2 o’clock in the morning after a 36 hour shift even though it was three hours into a work day after two days of sleeping and self-pity.

“Everything all right with Doctor Isles,” said Korsak cautiously.

“Yeah, yeah. Everything’s fine.” It was a lie. Everyone in earshot knew it was a lie. This wasn’t the time to admit it. “She says the dead body downstairs is too fat to be our guy. He’s got 50 pounds on our suspect, at least according to the morgue scale. Once she’s done, she’ll have more info.”

Frost shrugged his well-tailored shoulders. “Well, if he’s like anyone else I know, he doesn’t go to the DMV every time he ends up on a four-month drinking and doughnut binge.” He poked at Korsak’s gut and the older man playfully, or at least attempted playfully, swatted it away. “We’ll find out a bit more once the uniforms get back from his apartment.”

“Okay, yeah.” She had no interest in figuring out with this flat fat guy was doing in Boston or why someone felt the need to beat the hell out of him before throwing him out of the window of Boston’s second-largest skyscraper. She could predict from here that he would be a quiet guy who mostly kept to himself, no friends or family in the immediate area, and nothing to suggest any involvement in criminal activities. He’d have a mostly empty bank account, maybe in estranged wife or daughter, and would otherwise have lived a dull and unremarkable life until he dropped dead from a heart attack brought on by too many Big Macs. 

She turned around in her chair and listened to the boys discuss the better doughnut joints in a 10 mile radius. She couldn’t believe the two of them could hold conversation about this for more than 30 seconds, but here they were on minute five. She half tuned into it and half mulled the case over in her head.

Jane sat up suddenly and stopped swirling herself in her chair. 

“Wait, hold on,” she said. “That ID is under a month old. How the hell do you gain 50 pounds in three weeks without being a champion hotdog eater or a sumo wrestler?”

Korsak looked thoughtful as well. “Yeah, every time I gained weight it’s taken a while to put it on and infinitely longer to take it off,” he gave a glare at Frost, who apparently restrained himself over a dieting comment. 

Frost picked up the thread. “He looks like his picture, though,” he said, tapping on his computer and swirling the monitor around to face Jane. “Right now it looks like someone steamrolled his face, but that’s definitely the same guy and he doesn’t look much fatter than he did a few weeks ago.”

“That’s because the weight was not in his face, Detective Frost.” Maura’s scientific toned filled the air and Jane willed herself not to look back, then thought the better and turned around. Anything to keep the boys from inquiring further about the nature of Maura and Jane’s relationship.

Maura, her posture rigid and her face carefully surveying the three detectives, continued to relay her autopsy finding. “In the last two weeks, someone placed 50 pounds of osmium metal in his abdomen.”

The detectives exchanged confused looks. Korsark spoke first. “I’ve heard of drug smugglers filling their colons with cocaine and pooping them out once they get over the Mexican border.” He made a gesture with his body that left Frost giggling like a teenage boy and Jane covering her eyes in half-horror, half-irritation.

“But 50 pounds of metal,” the older detective continued. “I saw that guy on the sidewalk. Wouldn’t his intestines have looked chrome plated?”

“That’s not quite correct,” stated Maura, her eyes fixed on Korsak and no longer drifting towards Jane’s face. “Chromium, the element used to make chrome plating, tends to be grayish white in its unprocessed state. Osmium, on the other hand, is silvery, though,” she hastened to add, “not actually made of silver. Furthermore, osmium is significantly more dense than chromium.”

“Right, right, which means you don’t need as much metal to make that kind of weight. We all took high school chemistry. What’s the bottom line?” 

Under normal circumstances, Jane’s snappy retort would have come naturally. After all, this interplay was expected. Maura would go off on a tangent, Jane would make a slightly biting quip, and Maura would return to the topic. The problem was this time, the anger and aggravation was totally faked. Sharing information like this was what made Maura special. Jane wanted to be near Maura again to appreciate that specialness. She would have let Maura recite the periodic table to her as long as it meant Jane could hold her one more time, just being together. 

Maura played her part and resumed her explanation. No trace of hurt entered her voice as she steadily conveyed her autopsy results. “Unlike a so-called drug mule, Ralph Lauren did not swallow the metal. Instead, it was surgically inserted into his body cavity. The metal was concealed within cavities that would not have access to the contents of his gastrointestinal system.”

Jane turned to Frost, who was beginning to bend over in discomfort. The young man had improved his squeamishness significantly over the past few years, but somebody playing hide and seek with human organs was way beyond this tolerance. He waved a hand at the women as he shuffled towards another room. “I’ll go see what’s going on with the, um, apartment search. You all have fun covering some guy’s liver with disco balls.”

“Actually, insertion of metal into or onto the liver would have caused an unacceptable decrease in function, leading to death,” Maura called after the retreating detective. Any other person would have meant that as a way to make fun of him but Maura was too goodhearted. This was her conveying facts because she loved to give information. She loved her job. She loved Jane. And Jane wondered if that last one would be true much longer.

Thank goodness Korsak brought the conversation back together. “So a middle-aged handyman gets opened up, filled with metal, beat up, and then thrown out a window.” He and Jane shared a confused look. “I have to say this is one of the weirdest cases I’ve ever encountered.”

“But the motive is similar, right,” said Jane, waving one hand back and forth. “Osmium is super rare. 50 pounds of osmium costs the same as 50 pounds of cocaine and is a hell of a lot smaller. So this is some sort of high-stakes drug mule?”

“Given the rarity of osmium, every pound of osmium is likely worth hundred pounds of street grade cocaine. And technically it would be a heavy metal mule, but I think that term is too pop culture for a crime of this nature.” Maura bantered back. Jane’s breath caught in the back of her throat and she locked eyes with Maura. The doctor’s smile was genuine but delicate, almost not daring to cross her face. Jane tiptoed around the interaction.

“No, I like it. Heavy metal mule,” replied Jane. She played a few bars of air guitar, followed by an air power cord. She suppressed the urge to make a “bwannnggg” sound to accompany it, fearing that much silliness might disrupt the fragile conversation. “Okay, so, you said it was inserted shortly before his death?”

Maura nodded her head, a cascade of red brown curls bouncing gently. “There was a certain amount of wound healing around the spheres. Based on the amount of inflammation and scar tissue, I’d say it was about two weeks ago.”

“All right. We have a timeframe. Let’s start looking into things that happen in this guy’s life in the past 14 days.” Jane turned her head and then half-yelled into the other room, “Yo Frost. I have something for you to deal with that isn’t decorating somebody’s intestines like a Christmas tree.”

“Wait, Jane.” The other woman looked suddenly pained and concerned. “I had not considered that he might be immunosuppressed or otherwise ill. That could impede his healing. I will need to recheck all of my results.”

Jane wanted to reach her hand out to stop her friend and reassure her just like every other time Maura’s self-doubt reared its scowling head. But Jane couldn’t allow herself to be physical again, even in this limited fashion, until Maura let her. Thank God for Korsak, Jane noted to herself as she had so many times in the past.

The heavyset older man placed one broad hand on Maura’s slim shoulder. “I’m certain this guy was as healthy as an overweight middle-aged guy could be. And I’ll bet you a dozen doughnuts at Ruby’s Donut Shack that you don’t find anything more interesting than high cholesterol when you examine the results.”

Maura’s face pulled into a line of consternation. She flickered her eyes up at Jane and Jane smiled cautiously. Maura returned a bare mirror of the grin and Jane felt the five dimensional Gordian knot in her stomach untie just a fraction. 

“Detective Korsak,” chided the doctor. “It is highly inappropriate to wage bets over the results of an autopsy. And furthermore, doughnuts are filled with saturated fats and refined sugars. Neither of these are healthy for anyone of any age.”

“Yeah, Korsak,” Frost replied. The young man had strolled in, all signs of nausea or discomfort erased from his dark, chiseled face. “You need to watch your saturated fats. Plus, we all know Ruby’s is not the place to go for good doughnuts. The bet would mean more if you were getting a dozen from Thea’s House of Sweets.”

Jane rolled her eyes. “Oh will you to knock it off with the doughnut discussion. You’re making me hungry. Plus Ma would be horribly offended if she knew you two were cheating on her pastries.” She turned back to Maura. “Thank you for the report. Let us know if you find anything else.”

“Of course, Jane. I’m happy to help.” The tone had become so professional and so cold. The knot in Jane’s gut retightened and added another layer.

Maura turned on a single stiletto and clicked her way out of the office to the elevator. Korsak walked closer to Jane and nudged her with her shoulder. “Go talk to her,” he said in her ear, quiet enough that no one but Frost could detect. “Seems like something is on her mind, yeah?”

Jane shook her head. “No, it’s fine. We need to work…”

“Nope, no work. Korsak and I are going for donuts. See you in 15.” Frost grabbed his jacket and keys, and half dragged Korsak towards the exit. “But were going to take the stairs so it balances out.”

“That’s not how it works and you know it,” called Jane, her voice rising as the two men waltzed out. Then she sighed. She sat down at her desk and put her head in her hands. A few moments of contemplation later, she clasped her fingers behind her curly mane and let her forehead drop to the top of the worn and paper-covered desk. The other detective was right. She should go back to autopsy and pull the lovely doctor aside for something that resembled closure. She stepped into the elevator, hit the buttons for the basement, then pulled the emergency stop halfway between the floors.

Jane remembered how Maura had felt next to her, sated from Jane’s touch and Jane’s desire. The detective, happily curled around the smaller woman, idly ran her hands through Maura’s hair and wondered if she had managed to send her lover into a bliss-induced sleep. However, the slim, naked woman draped over her chest, her eyes half lidded with pleasure, had suddenly rolled over to stare intensely down at her best friend. With all the seriousness of any other definitive statement from Dr. Isles, Maura informed Jane, “I want to touch you.”

The statement might have been erotic under other circumstances, but it was delivered as a professional demand. Maura could have subsequently stated that she needed test results taken from the lab or assistance moving a body without needing to shift her tone. It was all Jane could do to keep from laughing and ruining the mood. Maura did not make soft requests, most likely because she knew they would be denied unless she made it clear they could not be ignored.

Jane smiled at her friend and reached one finger to caress the long strands of hair that fell away from Maura’s face and draped in front of her. She tucked the hair neatly behind Maura’s ear pulled the smaller woman closer. “Mmm, do you, now?” The kiss she initiated was quickly broken and Maura resumed her position arcing over Jane’s torso. 

“You must tell me whether you want me to do this or not,” said Maura. The tone was still deeply serious but some uncertainty slipped. “I will not be offended if you choose to decline.”

Jane’s face shifted to one of concern and she pressed Maura’s shoulders to bring her back down to the bed. She laced her body around Maura’s form, intertwining their legs to bring their faces together so they were almost touching.

“Why would I decline? I would love for you to touch me. I want to be intimate with you in all ways, giving and receiving.”

Maura glanced over to the side, breaking a steady gaze. Jane attempted to correctly discern the mood in front of her, but found herself struggling. She gave up guessing.

“Maura. Please tell me what you’re thinking. I don’t want you to believe for a second that I want anything other than you right now.” Maura turned her head back towards Jane, who immediately and easily translated this particular facial expression. Jane was about to receive a pearl of scientific wisdom, masquerading as an actual answer.

“In many traditional butch/femme relationships, the masculine figure prefers to perform sexual actions and not to receive. In some cases, the so-called ‘stone butches’ may not engage in physical interactions at all.” So prim, so matter-of-fact. 

Jane’s otherwise intense arousal was tempered by a burst of consternation. “You think I’m the man? What, because I wear pants and a gun every day?” Her body tensed up she had to keep herself from her usual frustrated scowl whenever the two entered this sort of test. “Didn’t we already have this conversation a few hours ago?”

Maura didn’t respond. The lines around her eyes creased and her face became an upsetting mix of shame and fear that had been beaten, quite literally, into Maura after years of rejection.

“Or,” said Jane more softly, brushing her fingertips down Maura’s neck and over rounded curve of her shoulder, “You are giving yourself an excuse in case I did reject you because you can’t believe I would want that from you.” 

There was an imperceptible, slightly miserable nod in reply. Rather than reply, Jane took in a breath and captured Maura’s hand. She drew it slowly down her own body, letting Maura’s palm trail over the lines of her rib cage, the rise of her hips, and finally between her legs. She parted her folds and let Maura’s hand slip in between. A rush of pleasure filled her as Maura’s fingers brushed over the inner lips, the sensation mirrored in Maura’s face as she felt Jane’s wetness.

“I want you. Never doubt that,” said Jane in breathy gasp. 

“Thank you,” whispered Maura, closing her eyes and leaning her head on Jane’s shoulder, keeping her hand in place. She crawled on top of Jane and pushed the taller woman’s legs apart with her knees. Then, she eased her hand down between their bodies, spread Jane’s folds, and began tracing the contours of her sex with inquisitive, gentle fingers.

Jane closed her eyes and relaxed into the pillow, allowing sensations to flow over her in warm tide. Maura seemed in no hurry. In the back of Jane’s mind, she recognized the methodical exploration of a scientist and anatomist in the touches being administered to her. The attentive, careful investigation that Maura applied at work was now being used to work Jane into sensual heights she had not experienced in so long. The analog between Maura’s lovemaking and Maura’s work with the dead would have been disturbing had it not been washed away by deep and constant pleasure.

A wonderful moan escaped her lips as Maura began stroking her clit with two graceful fingers. Deep and slow, covering every inch of her sex, leisurely and lightly, then quickly and hard. Jane let her eyes open and focused up on Maura. The other woman was looking down with an expression of what Jane could only call concentrated awe. The small doctor looked so intent and so happy. When she brought her fingers up to circle Jane’s clit again and Jane let out a sigh of contentment, Maura reacted as well, as if she were unaccustomed to being the giver in this way. Her blue-green eyes widened and a small smile flickered into place. Jane wrapped her arms around Maura and kissed her, causing the fingers between Jane’s legs to quicken. Her orgasm hit with raging force and she unconsciously dug her nails into Maura’s back as she spasmed and writhed. As the sensations subsided, Maura slowed her hand and curled herself into Jane’s shoulder.

“You are so beautiful. You are unlike anyone I have ever been with,” said Maura. Jane sighed and nuzzled her friend with her forehead.

“And you are…incredible. Amazing. And very talented for your first time, Dr. Isles,” Jane added with a tiny smirk. 

Jane could feel Maura blinking against her skin. “The female genital anatomy is much more subtle than that of the male. There are analogous anatomical structures, namely in the glans clitoris versus the glans penis, but the configuration makes sexual stimulation slightly different. For example, stimulating the clitoral root is more difficult than accessing the penile root. However, your vulva…”

“Can you not discuss my anatomy when we’re basking in an afterglow, Maura,” said Jane, groaning slightly. This was still Maura, and the commentary was not malicious, but it was deeply unsexy.

Maura propped herself up on an elbow and regarded Jane with a mischievous eye. “So I should do it while I’m making love to you?” She began stroking Jane again and, just before Jane slipped back into a haze of pleasure, she responded with a firm, “No.”

Jane realized she had been standing in a closed elevator at the ground floor for a good three minutes. She shook her head, trying to clear it of these smutty thoughts, and went out into autopsy.


	3. Donuts and Dalliances

Maura Isles did not like to guess. Casually twisting facts and overinterpreting limited information to fit a biased conclusion made her want to vomit. However, like legions of scientists before her, Dr. Isles was not above suggesting hypotheticals to focus her investigations. No scientist would look at every possible avenue due to sheer inefficiency. Instead, they would allow the evidence and laws of statistics to direct their attention towards the most fruitful outcomes. 

If Jane were here, and Maura desperately wished she were, Jane would say this was just a fancy way of guessing. Maura could almost hear that tone in Jane’s voice. That wonderful combination of annoyed and playful that made Maura so attracted to her. The way Jane both respected and teased Maura so that she was neither on a pedestal nor in the gutter. She sighed.

Maura rifled papers on her desk, trying to align them in a way that might induce further insight. Truth to be told, she had not discovered or hypothesized anything more than what she had completed with the detectives. Small spheres of osmium were surgically inserted into this man’s body. They had been deliberately placed within tissues and spaces that would bear a foreign object without too much loss of function, at least in the short term. Most were in the base of the man’s body, seeing as the density of the metal would tear through even strong tissue. The balls were in pouches of biologically inert mesh, anchored in place with what should have been dissolvable staples. In this case, she noted in her report, the staples were permanent. Obviously, someone planned to take the metal out again and decided the expense of dissolvable staples was not worth it.

The neatness of the pouch placement suggested the man had been anesthetized rather than operated on while conscious and objecting, which in turn suggested the surgery was performed in the presence of trained professionals. She would indicate this in her report. The detectives would need to see whether he had been admitted to a hospital for an outpatient procedure; perhaps this had masqueraded as a hernia repair. She shook her head. That would imply a room full of medical professionals all willing to insert foreign bodies not designed for healing into the man’s torso. The breach of scientific etiquette was deeply disturbing. This was certainly not how members of her profession were supposed to behave.

She drew the man’s torso on a piece of paper and placed a few lines on it. His abdomen showed evidence of a large, healing incision that someone had opened deliberately. Perhaps, she noted on one side of the paper, someone had attempted to extract the spheres and had failed to do so. But why? She left the questions to the detectives. Motive was not Maura’s specialty. Explanation and scientific curiosity were. 

A quiet series of knocks made her raise her head. Jane stood there, anxiously leaning on the door frame, looking nervous and wary as Jane had often been when faced with Maura’s wrath. Today, they both knew, was different. There is no fight, misunderstanding, or spat. There had instead been beautiful passion. Yet here they were, acting as if there had been some sort of transgression.

“Maura, do you have a little time? I know you must be very busy with Mr. Metal in there.”

Maura clicked her pen down and folded her hands neatly on the table. “Of course, Jane. I was just putting the finishing touches on my report.”

Jane walked in, quietly closing the door behind her, and striding with those beautiful, long legs to the front of Maura’s desk. She paced for a moment, then sat down. She put her hands on the table, gripping it as if she expected the table to drift away in some violation of gravity.

“I’m actually here because of us. Because things are so tense.” Jane looked at Maura. “I hate it when we fight but I think we need to actually, you know, talk.”

Maura let out a deep sigh of relief. “I would like that very much,” she admitted. The distance she had imposed had successfully protected the doctor from the emotional conflict of their new relationship. It had simultaneously cut Jane away from her, a situation more agonizing than confronting their sexual encounter. That Jane was here suggested Maura’s excision had failed, and never had Maura been happier not to succeed. 

“Me too. As you would’ve guessed, since I’m here,” Jane added quickly. “But we should not talk right now. Not when we have so many things to finish before the end of the day. Maybe tonight? Over dinner? I mean, if we’re not up too late figuring out what the hell this guy was doing with a belly full of metal.”

Maura’s smile flickered across her face. “Well, as you like to say, he’s not going to get much deader. Let me finalize the documentation and bring it to you. Then, maybe we can get something to eat.”

Jane smile was just as relieved as Maura’s. “Great. Now,” she said, her tone businesslike, but not distant. The comfortable tone of Jane doing her job. “What do we have? Cause of death?”

Maura turn the papers to face Jane. “Mr. Lauren died due to rapid exsanguination from an incision in his abdomen.”

Jane stood up, locked her hands in front of her and leaned on the back of the chair. She rubbed her forehead in confusion. “The beating and the swan dive weren’t the cause. You’re sure about the beating? He looked pretty screwed up when I saw him on the table.”

“He was the victim of severe battery, but it was performed at least five days before, as indicated by the formation of bruises. The injuries were likely painful but not life-threatening. Most of the bone breaks were the result of his falling from a great height, likely through a window based on the glass near the body.”

“Okay. So where did he bleed from?”

“His former incision. The scar was opened with a fine pointed blade…” 

“A scalpel,” said Jane.

Maura gave her a scientific glare. “That is one of many sharp objects that can be used to open a healing wound, Jane.” Jane’s reply was a familiar expression of what Maura recognized now as loving exasperation. “If this were a surgical excision, a scalpel would be the most likely tool. However, the wielder misjudged.”

“Misjudged,” Jane said urgently. “The guy cutting open Mr. Lauren was trying to dig out the metal and, what, screwed up?”

“The rationale for opening Mr. Lauren’s abdomen is not something I can discern through this autopsy, Jane, and you know I do not guess.” Another eye roll, which Maura appreciated, then ignored. “Regardless of intent, I found evidence the blade passed through multiple arteries in his lower abdomen. He would’ve bled out within minutes.”

“I’m guessing this is not the kind of error a good doctor makes.”

Maura’s shook her head. “Even the most basic anatomy student would recognize the delicacy of interacting with the torso. Blood supply to the…”

“I get it. This guy might’ve flunked outta med school?” She held up her hands in a stopping position before Maura could reply. “I won’t ask you to guess. Just a suggestion for your later discernment. Anything else?”

Maura indicated another line in her report. “The metal was surgically inserted in a way suggesting a sterile environment involving skilled personnel and anesthesia.”

“Nobody went after him with a steak knife and a bottle of cheap whiskey in a basement. That’s good to know,” Jane said, drumming her fingers. “Okay. This means we must figure out whether this guy was in the hospital, in a private clinic, or something else. Maybe he flew down to Mexico for this kind of thing.” She nodded her head a few times. “This is really helpful, Maura. Thank you.”

Jane turned on her heel and went to leave the room. She placed her hand on the doorknob and turned back. “I’m looking forward to tonight. Let’s figure out who put the balls in this guy,” she said, breaking the bit of solemnity she had used in the first sentence with a mark of crass humor. Before Maura could give a response, Jane swung out the door.

Maura rose and crossed the floor, closing the door behind her best friend and leaning her forehead against the interior surface. So many things she loved about Jane were on brilliant display when the woman came to visit. Her tenderness, her devotion, her beauty, her intellect, her insight. All these things had made Maura love Jane as a friend. Maura had told Jane as much in the past. Jane had reciprocated. It had all been fine.

Over time, Maura began to consider Jane not only her best friend but also an object of desire. Maura knew such attractions were often present between heterosexual females. Had her life been a shojo manga from 1930, her feelings for Jane might be termed a Class S relationship. In Western parlance, she had a “girl crush” on a woman whom she admired. It was reasonable Maura might become more intensely interested in her friend, seeing as the two of them shared so many emotional and occasionally physical moments.

Having cataloged the relationship as such, Maura put her feelings aside. After all, Maura had multiple romantic prospects in the form of various attractive men, not all of whom were serial killers. She never lacked for sexual company and could find herself quite busy with any number of lovers. But inevitably the relationships would be short term. All the men would have some subtle or not too subtle flaw. Too condescending, too put off by her work, too impolite to her friends and loved ones. She remembered the surgeon who had treated Jane and how despite his tenderness in bed, he had acted in a way that made him eventually repulsive. Then there are just as many men who decided against giving her a second or third glance because she was too awkward or too distant or too career-focused. There were those who were impressed by her science and yet reluctant to continue their relationships because ultimately, they did not want someone who would compete with them.

Jane never judged her and never turned her away. Well, Maura mentally amended, Jane’s judgments were not uncommon. They were nigh constant. However, they were done with kindness and were rarely serious. If Maura were turned away, it was usually due to fear and anger rather than disappointment or loathing. Often any judgment was made to reassure Maura of her desirability and normalcy. Being called goofy was paired with the insistence that Maura was a non-criminal, non-sociopath, worthy of love and attention. The constant attacks on her encyclopedic knowledge of the human condition were matched with constant respect and pursuit of Maura’s skills as a scientist.

And then there was Jane’s easy physicality. The other woman always wanted to embrace Maura, rustle her hair, pat her on the hip, and urge her closer on the couch when watching television. Maura had demurred at first, preferring her personal space and the distance instilled in her by her parents’ WASP culture. As the crush developed, Maura entered a push-pull relationship with the affection. She began to crave every half-hug, every casual touch, occasionally being tempted to seek them out. Inevitably, she turned such affection away for fear it would unleash some of the emotions she had built up. 

The crush had become insistent, like a rapidly expanding pruritic rash, and eventually metamorphosed into full-fledged unrequited longing. The simple, friendly love they shared raged into unidirectional lust. On the many nights Jane spent at Maura’s house, Maura envisioned climbing into the bed and kissing Jane. They would transform comfort and affection into something more passionate and sexually satisfying. She imagined letting her hands discover the woman underneath the hardened officer and Jane performing a similar inquiry into Maura’s hidden sexual nature. The fantasy had always terminated there, Maura’s logical mind reminding her that engaging in fantasies with a heterosexual friend was the very definition of pointless. Nonetheless, if Maura weren’t distracted by work or an active male lover, her brain would naturally progress to imagining the two of them together. 

Therefore, it had been the almost exact fulfillment of Maura’s desires when Jane lay Maura down on the bed and resumed her unhurried exploration of Maura’s body. Here, in Jane’s bed, the object of Maura’s crush was happily and intently adoring her breasts, her wrists, the crook of her knees, and her back. Everywhere but the aching need between Maura’s legs. How Jane could be so restrained when she was usually so impulsive was beyond Maura’s ability to comprehend, not when Maura was so desperate to be touched. Mentally, she begged Jane to go lower and bring her some release from this tension, while simultaneously fearing Jane would change her mind. Having Jane do so before being more intimate would hurt less, Maura concluded, a bitter thought that clashed terribly with the sensations she was experiencing.

Perhaps Jane had sensed the shift in Maura’s mood, because she crawled up Maura’s body and administered a deep, passionate kiss, which was followed by a wicked smile. Jane let her mouth nibble its way down Maura’s neck, between her breasts, and down her stomach. She tilted her head up once, locking eyes with Maura and hesitating, waiting perhaps for a sign of consent to continue.

Maura wanted to convince Jane that this was what she wanted. That Maura would give Jane permission to do anything and everything Jane desired. That Maura trusted Jane enough to open herself in this most intimate, personal way. 

However, all Maura could manage in her blissful state was a soft, “Please.”

With that, Jane progressed lower, using her fingertips to trace the outline of Maura’s sex before opening her and delicately exploring the wetness therein. Maura had let out a cry of pleasure and relief as the fingers brushed over her clit, then another as she felt Jane push forward and envelop Maura’s tingling bundle of nerves with her mouth.

Jane’s tongue had danced across her folds and her muscled arms wrapped themselves around Maura’s thighs, leaving Jane buried in the nexus of Maura’s pleasure. She could tell Jane was trying to hold back her ardor, trying to slowly tease her and draw the sensations out. Maura arched her hips, half-deliberately, hoping to entice her lover give her more. Her ploy succeeded and Jane tossed aside her restraint. Now Maura was being absolutely ravished by an eager, if not completely experienced tongue. The darker haired woman was fast and demanding, anxiously tasting and experimenting, looking for Maura’s response with every flick and swirl.

Maura had lost herself in the sensation of both the pleasure and the possessiveness of Jane’s touch. How Jane reached out to entwine her fingers with Maura’s while not breaking the contact with her sex. How Jane gave a growl of approval whenever Maura gasped or moaned. Eventually, Maura found herself writhing and winding her fingers in Jane’s long, curly black hair, pressing Jane’s face into her body, begging for more with her body if she couldn’t consciously with her words. She whispered and then allowed herself to scream Jane’s name. It wasn’t planned as it might have been with other partners. It was a raw guttural need to let her lover know that what she was doing to Maura was all Maura wanted. 

Maura had always felt the wave metaphor of orgasm to be overdone and cliché, but at this moment, she reconsidered. This orgasm was a tidal force, a tsunami of release, her need and desire taking away everything in her life but this moment of climax. The sensations were all-encompassing and left her gasping for air. The second that followed quickly thereafter was unexpected and no less intense.

After she had become too sensitive and tugged Jane away from her, the other woman had rested her head on Maura’s iliac crest and drawn her fingers up and down Maura’s thighs. Little goosebumps followed her fingertips and Maura weighed encouraging another round of sex against how tired and tingly she felt. She was more than sated, at least for the moment, and turned her attention towards Jane. 

In these moments of vulnerability, she worried Jane would suddenly recognize what they were doing and back away. Plus, she held the simple fear that she would not be naturally skilled with the female form. As an anatomist, Maura had few peers. She could parlay that into a sexual encounter, she rationalized, but reading Jane like a cadaver was perhaps the least sexy thing she could do. Would Jane laugh if Maura got lost somehow or merely performed poorly? 

It turned out scientific exploration and precise anatomy were unneeded when approaching Jane’s body. The other woman was wonderfully responsive and gave herself over easily and completely to Maura. Maura found herself enraptured by all the sounds and movements Jane made, enough that Maura wished she could spend hours determining the optimal position and pressure to generate the strongest orgasms. Such exploration would have been too much for her dear friend, who made it quite known to Maura that what she wanted was a more immediate release.

Once Jane had come down again, she reversed their positions once again. Maura had been rewarded with another two orgasms of her own, this time with Jane holding her down with her body weight and gazing deeply at Maura as she used her hands to bring the young woman to heights of pleasure. Opening her eyes and watching Jane as Maura began to slip over the edge of her climax was one of the most beautiful, intimate moments she could recall. 

But then there had been the moment where it all switched. Jane had pulled Maura close and wrapped around her, spooning her and letting the full expanse of their bodies touch. Maura could feel the warm skin along her back and the strong hands that played her so well making figure eights on her abdomen. If she could have a sustainable source of nutrition, hydration, and waste excretion, Maura would have liked to have remained there forever.

In a drowsy tone, Jane sighed to Maura, “I never knew I would enjoy this so much. Now that I know, I don’t ever want to stop.” She kissed Maura’s ear and pulled her tightly into her body. “You are amazing. I am so lucky to have you.”

Maura had lain there, blinking and suddenly very awake. All of Maura’s fantasies had ended either with a haze of shared orgasm or confused rejection by her friend, if the fantasy were yet another vehicle for Maura’s self-doubt. Not one fantasy ended with Jane expressing a desire for further sexual encounters and an explicit claiming of Maura. 

At that moment, Maura recognized this crush, having been realized to its fullest extent, was now on the cusp of becoming something more complicated than attraction. What was Maura supposed to do? How was Maura supposed to react? She had tried to tamp down the rising emotions of confusion and uncertainty, but eventually failed. The sentence had flipped every single one of Maura’s panic switches and she made her escape.

Now, here they were. The divide between them seemed absolutely uncrossable. Thank goodness for Jane’s constant pursuit of her friend. Even if it weren’t sexual, Jane would not be one to abandon Maura. Jane had tackled bad guys, guided Maura after a car crash, and killed her terrifying nemesis, Dr. Hoyt, all to protect Maura. The young woman could not believe Jane would suddenly give up on her now, but why else would Jane be avoiding her?

She drew her fingertips through her hair, letting the strands pull back and fall naturally along her sharp features. It was all so confusing. Emotions were overwhelming on the best of days. On the worst of days, like today, they were streams of data in a foreign language. If only she could translate, she might have a chance of comprehending the onslaught. 

Despite her turning Jane down, all she wanted was Jane nearby. She had been so sure that the encounter was a mistake, but the reason she gave was the less accurate one; limiting Jane’s career was far less of a concern than driving Jane away or losing Jane forever. Now that the possibility of sexual contact had been stopped by Maura’s request, Maura began to seriously reconsider the correctness of her actions. How did that even make sense? Maybe their dinner would be helpful.

Maura paced a few more minutes, then gave up. She set all the papers in order, tossed them neatly in a manila folder, and left autopsy.

“Senior Criminalist Chang,” she called behind her. “Please alert me if you make any discoveries.”

“Yes doctor,” replied the scientist, quietly grateful that Maura was retreating towards her best friend. The quantity of lab gossip when Maura and Jane were fighting was enough to bring most scientific progress to a standstill. No one wanted to admit evidence processing was a good 50% slower because everyone was trying to use their scientific knowledge to suss out the root of the current discord. Almost everyone was united behind this being a personal reason. Even covertly hacked emails and stealthily gained text messages provided no insight. Short of putting a wire on Dr. Isles, Susie and her labmates had to content themselves with conjecture.

/--\\__/--\\__/--\\__/--\\__/--\\__/--\\__

Maura stalked across the bullpen, avoiding rolling chairs and the covertly admiring eyes of the many male officers who had come to appreciate her petite form. She stood once more in front of the trio of desks that housed Korsak, Frost, and her Jane, looking for a place to lay out her report. No such place was available.

Instead, every inch of the desks was covered with donuts. Dozens upon dozens of donuts, some in pink-striped boxes and some in neat carrying cases festooned with ribbons. A bevy of eating and shouting members of the BPD milled around Frost and Korsak, consuming the snacks with alarming speed. A young officer from the drug unit was dusted with enough powdered sugar that he appeared to have indulged in the products of a cocaine bust. Frankie was licking dollops of reddish cream from his fingers. Even Cavanaugh was there, slicing a tenth of a whole wheat donut in the hopes it would satisfy his craving without spiking his cholesterol.

A flash of ire crossed Maura’s face. “I thought we were working a murder case. Instead, I’ve stumbled into a donut bacchanalia,” she said, gesturing across the ever-dwindling spread of sweets.

Korsak chewed half of a chocolate glazed and puzzled at her. “Bak-a-what ne a,” he asked before letting out a belch. He glanced back and forth, hoping no one had heard him over the din.

“Real classy, Korsak,” replied Jane, who appeared suddenly from behind a filing cabinet. Maura’s heart went fluttering as the lanky detective sauntered over to her partners and swiped the other half of his donut from the plate. “Didn’t your mother teach you any manners? Hell, didn’t my mother teach you any manners? You’re down in the café enough.” 

Jane bit down and leaned back, catching a few crumbs in her hand, and allowing a now-familiar look of bliss to cross her face.

“A bacchanalia,” replied Maura, tearing her gaze from her friend’s enraptured expression, “was a celebration associated with the Roman god Bacchus, known as Dionysus to the Greeks. During these festivals, people secretly engaged in practices frowned upon by conventional Roman society, such as drunken fighting and sexual promiscuity.”

“You’re saying we’re having a donut orgy,” deadpanned Frost. “Why, Dr. Isles, I didn’t know you were aware of such behaviors. Didn’t you go to an all-girls school?”

Blood rose to her cheeks. “The study of Greco-Roman culture would be incomplete without a full exploration of their religious festivals, many of which contained fertility rituals involving copious amounts of sexual intercourse. Satyrs with enormous phalluses featured prominently in art depicting the bacchanalia.” The room was becoming uncomfortably warm and she couldn’t help but seek out Jane, but the woman had put her head down and was banging it on the table.

“Mauraaaa,” she whined. “I don’t want to think about having sex when eating donuts. Now all I’m picturing is some hairy guy with donuts on his…”

“Hey now,” interrupted Frankie. “There’s a lady present.” He gestured towards the doctor. Jane looked up and stuck her tongue out at him. “I’m deeply sorry for my sister’s crassness, Dr. Isles. I’ll make sure my mother washes her mouth out with soap next time we’re all together for dinner.”

Maura went to pat his hand, then remembered it was coated with his saliva. She tapped his shoulder instead. “That’s quite okay, Frankie. I’ve long since learned that Jane’s manners are beyond correcting.”

It was one of the most effective baits that Maura could use. An insult directed at Jane in front of her friends and family never failed to bring out Jane’s combative side. Maura craved that. At least when Jane was blinded by emotions, she would be open with Maura again. She’d stop holding back. Sure enough, Jane rolled back from the desk and stomped over to Maura. The fire in her eyes sent a rush through the pathologist. 

“You’re lecturing me on manners,” she said, pointing her finger sternly at her brother, then rotated her arm so it was focused on Maura, “and you’re agreeing with him? Since when is my brother the authority on good behavior? Have you ever seen him eat dinner? Elbows on the table every damn time.” 

Maura pulled back a little. Perhaps this wasn’t the best way to engage Jane right now. How much of the anger and passion was teasing and how much was true hurt?

“I was just saying that as we get older, we tend to get set in our ways,” said Maura, attempting to placate the grouchy detective. 

Jane threw her hands in the air then stormed back to her desk, no longer listening. The heat from her presence vanished, leaving Maura in the emotional cold. Maura contracted her body, curving inward in embarrassment. She should have known better. Before an apology could leave her lips, a pale green donut on a crinkled napkin was thrust in front of her.

“Yeah, well, at least I have enough manners to remember you don’t like greasy desserts. I had Frost get you this abomination so you wouldn’t feel left out.” Maura looked up into Jane’s eyes. Warmth returned as she searched out Jane’s features. The tone was aggravated but the look was pure love. Maura took the proffered pastry, enjoying a few milliseconds of skin-to-skin contact with this amazing woman.

Frost came over and pointed with one sturdy finger. “It is a gluten-free, vegan kale donut with organic lemon frosting from Thea’s Donut Shack.” He tilted his balding head towards his partner. 

“Jane called me up just as we were leaving to make sure we brought back something for you. Not that anyone would want to eat that,” he said, shaking his head. “I never thought I would encounter a donut from Thea’s that I wouldn’t want to eat, but the moment I saw that, I knew I was wrong.”

Maura stopped listening midway through the insult to her dessert. She took a tentative nibble. The flavor was odd and the clash between the citrus of the lemon and the boldness of the kale not quite appropriate for a confection. It didn’t matter. She finished the whole thing in five bites. Jane had gotten it for her. Jane had taken care of her, as always. No one would be as good to her as Jane would be.

“Damn girl,” said Jane with a whistle. “I don’t know how you keep that figure if you can shotgun a donut like that. Even if that thing looks like barf and play-doh, it’s still deep fried.” Her eyes appreciated Maura and trailed from the top of her head down along her body.

Maura arched her eyebrows and found herself angling towards Jane. “Well, I know when to indulge and when to restrain…myself.” Her words caught in her throat. Jane’s face fell and she pursed her lips, trying to rearrange her expression into familiar aggravation. A silent beat passed.

“Annywaay,” said Frost, “We’re eating donuts because there’s literally nothing else to do right now. The techs are still combing this guy’s house and tracking down his contacts. Hell, we don’t even know if Ralph Lauren is his real name, so we’re going nowhere. Fast.”

“Have you located the original crime scene,” Maura enquired.

“Maybe,” said Frost, waving his hands. “There’s a missing window on the fifth floor of the Prudential center, which corresponds to your estimate of his fall distance.” He nodded appreciatively towards the doctor, who felt a flush of accomplishment. “Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to get to it because, surprise, surprise, a building full of lawyers and high-end businessmen won’t let us in without a warrant. They say the evidence is circumstantial.”

“But they could be contaminating my scene,” said Maura with a tinge of panic. “Certainly they must recognize the importance of evidence integrity.”

“Not to worry. While we’re waiting for a judge who they haven’t paid off, we’re allowed to put a few uniforms near that office to keep everyone else out. Your crime scene will be fine, Dr. Isles,” reassured Frost. “Why not take the rest of the evening off? Jane says you two are due for a girls’ night out.”

Jane glared at him and hissed through gritted teeth. “I did not, Frost.” Her posture was rigid and her hands clenched in an effort, Maura was certain, to keep from tossing a donut at her partner.

“I appreciate the thought, Detective Frost, but I’m sure Jane is extremely busy with other cases,” Maura replied in a mollifying tone.

“No, I insist.” Lieutenant Cavanaugh strolled over and snuck another donut into his suit pocket, enveloping it in a napkin with his left hand as he gestured with his right. “You two work so damn hard. Enjoy the lull. We’ll call when something happens.”

Maura looked hopefully at Jane, who wouldn’t meet her gaze. “It might be nice to have a bit of a break, Jane. Don’t you think?” She didn’t know her internal voice, the one usually so calm and scientific, could be so mentally demanding. All it wanted right now was to spend however many hours she could muster with Jane.

The tall detective slumped and walked towards her chair, scooping up her jacket and sliding it on. “Fine. Fine. We’ll go for a ‘girls night out’. Any other suggestions, boys? Should we go to…whatever the male equivalent of Hooters would be?”

“I don’t know,” replied Frost with a grin. “Just try not to get too drunk on fruity umbrella drinks. You know, cocktails for girls?”

Before Maura could reply, Jane reached out and tugged her elbow. This was the first time Jane had deliberately touched her since Friday. Sure, it was a bit rough, but long fingers cupping her arms and pulling her into Jane were still things Maura craved. 

“Come on Maura,” she growled, half-pulling Maura out of the precinct. “Let’s go before they force-feed you a Boston crème donut.”

Behind them, the four men who knew them best lined up and watched the two women leave.

“Think they’ll work it out,” asked Frankie hopefully.

“I hope so,” said Cavanaugh grimly. “No one will get a damn thing done until they do. I swear those two remind me of an old married couple half of the time.”

“Hey, if any of my wives and I had half the chemistry they do, we’d still be married,” noted Korsak.

Then, the boys all chuckled and went back to their donuts.

/--\\__/--\\__/--\\__/--\\__/--\\__/--\\__

Maura was glad she had chosen this restaurant. Chic without being pretentious, with a menu that had an acceptable mix of comfort food and experimental cuisine. Plus it was dark, private, and very busy. Normally she might find the clinking of glasses and clatter of plates disruptive. Given the gravity of the conversation on which Jane and she were about to embark, however, background noise would do well to fill the inevitable awkward pauses.

Well, that was if she and Jane ever got to have a real conversation. The previous 20 minutes had been full of settling in and complaining. Jane had taken to grousing about the overly upscale presentation of ordinary food. Florid descriptions of what amounted to a burger and fries or spaghetti carbonara provided Jane with enough ammunition to monopolize the first 10 minutes with her whining, followed by two minutes of being offended when Maura accused her of whining. Then there was Jane ranting about the men pushing them out the door of the police station, with Maura agreeing the invasion of their privacy was unwelcome but nonetheless effective in making them go out.

Somewhere between the appetizers in the first course, Jane broke the chatter of trivialities and her sharp features dropped into a serious expression. She glanced around to ensure the waiter had bustled off to the kitchen, took in a deep breath and said, “Maura, I’m trying to figure out how the hell we got here. I know, you explained it on Friday, and I’m trying to respect it.”

Maura nodded but didn’t interrupt.

“I can tell there’s something still bothering you. Everyone knows by now that you only call me Detective Rizzoli,” continued Jane, waving her suit clad arms in the air and crooking the fingers with air quotes, “under two circumstances. One is when you’re making fun of me, which you weren’t, and two is when you’re angry with me. For once I don’t know what’s wrong.” 

The doctor recognized how difficult it was for Jane to be this open and honest, especially in a public place. Then again, Jane was the one who suggested dinner and the implication had been something other than a home-cooked meal or greasy takeout. Diffusion of the emotional load might be achieved in a place where social norms dictated Jane remain calm. Perhaps she didn’t trust herself not to become enraged in private.

Maura folded and then refolded her napkin. The coarse cloth didn’t shape well and her attempts to craft a swan were an unsuccessful outlet for her disquiet. She should have protested the dinner’s sudden onset so she had time to create a cogent argument, a logical discourse on her emotions that she could refer to whenever she was confronted. No such position paper had been prepared when the men pushed them out of the office that evening. Instead, she was just here with Jane.

She started, “I think,” and then stopped. No, she didn’t think right now, did she? She hadn’t thought at the time, either.

“I want you to know,” she retried. That also failed. She didn’t want Jane to know. She wanted Jane. Not merely a conveyance of information. The actual, wonderful, beautiful, needful woman in front of her. Maura took a page from Jane’s book and went with her emotions, for once.

“You haven’t done anything wrong. I have,” said Maura. She paused. “I’ve fallen in love with you.”

Jane heaved a sigh that mixed with a wry smile. “Well, I know that. I’ve known that for years. Only someone who really loves me could put up with half of the crap I dish out.”

No levity crossed Maura’s face. “No. More than that. The feelings I experience when I am near you have come to include eros in addition to the appropriate expressions of storge and philia.”

A moment passed and Jane wrinkled her brow. “If I remember my Latin…”

“Greek,” corrected Maura. “These are Grecian, not Roman, terms.”

The brow wrinkle turned into a covert eye roll. “Fine. If I remember my Greek, philia is brotherly love or something? Which is why when you go to Philadelphia, you love eating the cheesesteak. I’ve never heard of storge, but I’m guessing it’s the type of love you feel when you buy a condo and there’s enough closet space for your shoe collection.”

Maura turned her gaze away from the angled, beautiful face and focused on the tablecloth. It was cheap in its manufacture, detracting from her opinion of the chicness of the restaurant. She tried to distract herself from her humiliation by thinking of a review she’d write for the dining experience later. 

“You’re mocking me,” she said, not taking her eyes off the waxed weave. ‘Promising but disappointing’ would be what she’d title the review. Much like everything else these days.

“Only because we tend to communicate best when we’re not being serious. I know you well enough by now to recognize when you’re using decades of academia to hide your emotions.” A hand reached out and covered Maura’s own. “I understand that it means you love me sexually in addition to loving me like family and a friend.”

All of Maura’s attention went into the touch of skin on her own. The tablecloth could have transformed from polyester to barbed wire and to damask. She wouldn’t have noticed. She didn’t want to move but her claustrophobic fear of public emotions overtook her and she drew her arm back, placing both hands in her lap.

“Yes,” Maura admitted. Back to contemplating the tablecloth. Would it be worth speaking with the manager on the way out to let him know her opinion of his business had been deeply affected by his subpar taste in table linens?

“Okay,” replied Jane. “Sure.” 

Jane fell silent and, according to Maura’s internal count, nineteen uncomfortable seconds passed. Maura willed herself to look upward. Jane’s face was perched on her palm, long fingers drumming on her cheek. The other woman was staring at some point to the left of Maura’s head. Her expression was thoughtful and slightly distant. Another 38 seconds passed until Maura could no longer take the silence and attempted to restart the conversation.

“I know it’s silly and not what I ever intended. Please let me reassure you that I attempted to keep things professional. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner or that I’ve told you at all. I can’t believe this happened?” 

Her voice trailed off in an uncharacteristic up tone. Jane was rarely lost in thought and it made Maura nervous when her talkative friend was rendered taciturn. Was she upset or offended? Bored? Tired? Enraged? 

“No, Maura, it makes sense,” observed Jane in a thoughtful tone. “Half of my boyfriends were my friends first, including Casey. Most of the guys who keep trying to sleep with me are my coworkers. Ugh. Martinez,” she sneered. “That cocky bastard thought that working together meant he and I had some deep sexual chemistry. You agreed, remember? Subtle signs of sexual arousal…” mocked Jane, shifting her eyes from the dimly-lit décor to her sheepish friend’s face. 

“Yes, well, I still think Raphael was attracted to you.” The tanned detective’s face flickered into her imagination. He was a rugged, handsome man who seemed just as interested in pursuing Jane as Maura was. 

“Exactly,” pounced Jane. “He’s attracted to me even though we were merely colleagues. Yeah, we worked a few late nights together, but not as many as you and I. And let’s not forget that you and I also spend most of our non-work hours together. This is totally natural.”

Maura was bewildered. “You’re not upset?”

“Why would I be upset that a brilliant, beautiful woman fell in love with me? Even more when that person is my best friend, who I know loves me despite everything I put her through.”

“Because…you’re not gay,” argued Maura. Why was she arguing? She didn’t want to argue. She wanted to accept and agree.

A gentle snort came as the reply. “Neither are you. And think of all the gorgeous, gay male actors who still get women’s panties in the mail from legions of women wanting to be the exception. Who you are doesn’t actually affect who falls in love with you.”

Maura leaned forward in offense. “Oh, so I’m as pathetic as a woman who sends lingerie-based tokens of affection to a man she will never meet and whose sexuality she can never hope to change?”

Jane drooped. “Maura, sometimes I swear you take the things I say and stuff them through a translator to make them as hurtful as possible. No, what I mean is having someone attracted to me is a complement, regardless of gender.” She paused. “I mean, as long as the person isn’t a crazy creep who is obsessed with me because he’s a serial killer,” corrected Jane.

“I think we can both agree that we should be done with serial killers for a while,” observed Maura. “Either professionally or personally.”

The two women stopped and smiled at each other. Perhaps the waiter knew a break in conversation had occurred as he swooped in to deposit their food then vanished, leaving the two with their dinner. Jane took a bite of her pasta. She swallowed and frowned. 

“Ugh, what the hell did the chefs use as the base for this cream sauce? Velveeta?” She clinked her fork back down. “I swear there isn’t one restaurant outside of the North End that can make an alfredo not taste like EZ-Cheese. Haven’t these guys ever encountered good Romano?” 

With one disapproving finger, she prodded the edge of Maura’s food. “And what’s that? It looks like an unfortunate accident involving a lawn mower and a raccoon.”

“It’s steak tartare, dusted with cornmeal and southwestern spices, with a cranberry reduction and mesclun salad,” observed Maura. She pointed at each element of her meal. The dish, presented in a raw and lightly oozing mass nestled into the greens, did look like a heap of chopped flesh. Jane was appropriately horrified.

“You’re eating raw meat? The woman who makes me wash my eggs before I crack them into a frying pan is eating raw meat? You never get to complain about my kitchen cleanliness again.” Jane took another bite of pasta, perhaps to cut herself off from ranting.

“You refuse to buy organic, free-range eggs,” protested Maura. “Conventional eggs are covered in salmonella. I don’t want you to get sick!”

Jane put down her fork, crossed her hands in front of her, and smiled at Maura. “You know, if Casey said that to me, I’d accuse him of being all protective and domestic. Meanwhile, I think I’d be offended if you stopped, no matter how much I complain.”

Maura poked at her pile of meat. It was beginning to warm up from its customary chilled temperature. This greatly increased the risk of latent bacteria beginning to activate. Also, the mention of Casey filled Maura with disquiet. In sleeping with Jane, she had technically caused Jane to cheat on Casey. The couple had been through that once before, but the relationship at that point had been loose enough for Agent Dean to sneak in. Now the soldier and detective were more solid. Yet here was Maura in an uncomfortable role as homewrecker.

Maura’s face must have telegraphed her discomfort, since Jane pushed aside her food and leaned forward again. 

“Maura, don’t worry about Casey and me. I love him. I really do. But the reality is he and I are living very different lives and one of us will need to give up everything to be with the other. I don’t think I’m willing to do that for someone I love, no matter how special. He will understand if I try something with you now.”

Maura’s eyes widened and her heart began an impossible pattern that reminded her of ventricular tachycardia. “Try…something with me?”

Jane’s face was a strange combination of excited and pensive. “Yes. You know, a relationship. That’s why this all happened, right? I say let’s give it a try. I’ve done crazier things.”

Maura felt like she had been subjected to an extreme force from an unknown object. Jane was giving Maura the opportunity Maura had been dreaming of for months. Not just sex, but love, closeness, a real partnership. Exactly what Maura wanted, which was why she turned it down.

“I appreciate your willingness,” she said, gathering herself up into her customary reserved posture. “However, I don’t think we should pursue this farther than it has already gone.”

Jane could not have shut down more quickly than if Maura had told her Hoyt was back. “After this heartfelt conversation in which you divulge your secret love for me, you’re changing your mind?”

“No, never,” objected Maura. “I could never stop…feeling the way I do. But I think it’s best if we don’t keep going in this way.”

Jane ran frustrated fingers through her hair. “Because you don’t want to ruin my career prospects? I think we both know that’s not accurate.”

Maura looked at Jane, whose face was a raw battle of emotions. “You’re right.” She let her heart flutter more, then divulged the rest of her truth. “I don’t think we should pursue this relationship because I am afraid I’ll lose you one day.”

“But Maura,” said Jane beseechingly, “think of all the times I’ve been in the hospital or that I’ve been kidnapped or in a shootout. You always run the risk of losing me because that’s my job. I made an oath to lay down my life in the service of the city. We don’t have to be…you know…” Jane glanced around, attempting to be subtle. “Having sex,” she continued in a fake whisper, “for this to be the case.”

“I know, Jane,” said Maura softly. She reached out a cool hand, then retracted it to fidget with the salt shaker. “Your willingness to sacrifice yourself is often foolish but ultimately admirable.”

“Gee thanks,” sighed Jane. 

Maura patted the crystal surface of the shaker in lieu of trying to touch her friend. “It isn’t meant unkindly. You hurtle into danger without thought for your own safety or the outcome of your actions. You never think about what it will do to the people who love you should you get hurt.”

“So what? I shouldn’t chase a bad guy down an alley because it might upset you if I end up in the hospital again?” Jane’s tone became combative and she fidgeted restlessly with her silverware, tapping the side of her fork against her glass if she were preparing to make a wedding speech

“Absolutely not,” said Maura, offended that her friend would even contemplate that. “I would no more interfere with your role as a detective than you would my role as medical examiner. You would never have me derelict my duty even if I were brought into contact with a body infected with Ebola, for example, or an extremely purulent form of gangrene…”

“Yeah, I got it Maura,” said Jane, rubbing her for head with pinched fingers. “Okay, forget I said that. But it’s true. When I act, I don’t think about myself or the people I love. And I don’t know what it means that I’m willing to lay my life down for stranger but not willing to protect my life for people who love me.”

“It means you’re an amazing police officer, Jane,” reassured Maura. “It means that you exemplify the selflessness and devotion that people need to expect from those who defend them. I would never say you should be less of who you are just for me.”

Jane folded her fingertips in front of her and leaned her forehead dejectedly on her thumbs. “But it means that you would wait by the door every night wondering if I’m going to come home.”

Maura didn’t admit how many nights she had spent doing just that. Sometimes with Angela by her side, fretting and cooking. Other times curled up with her cell phone on the couch, waiting for the call that would summon Maura to a crime scene, to a hospital, or to a morgue bearing Jane’s broken body. More tears had soaked into those cushions over Jane than Maura would ever admit. 

“We’ve been on the force how many years,” continued Jane. “In that time, how many couples, even cop couples, do we know that split up because one of them was tired of drinking cold coffee and chain smoking cigarettes at 3AM whenever the other was on the job?” She let out a resigned sigh. 

“Nine,” replied Maura. “And it’s not just the fear of divorce, Jane.” She took in a breath. “This may sound terrible, but I’ve always thought of getting married to someone who would…be there when you weren’t.”

Jane’s face shifted into one of bafflement. “Yes, Maura, that’s what marriage means. Being there. Doing chores and paying bills and picking out dust ruffles while your friends do something more fun.” Her tone was flat and slightly confused, much as it was whenever Jane was attempting to follow one of Maura’s scientific fields of inquiry.

Maura tried to explain. “I always expected you would get married too. You’ve had numerous potential sexual partners and it’s only your fear of commitment stopping you, which is another reason I have reconsidered our pairing. That and your mother’s need for grandchildren…”

Maura could tell this conversation was not pleasing her friend. Jane’s cocked eyebrow and slackened jaw were beginning to drift apart further and further until Maura feared Jane might wrench her face in two from incredulity. She continued, undeterred. 

“I’ve always pictured us having husbands because, I always believed…” Maura fidgeted with one of her rings, not allowing herself to look Jane in the face anymore. 

“If I were married, I’d at least have someone else to love me if you died in the line of duty. Not because that person could ever replace you but because it would mean I had somebody left.” Maura battled her emotions, willing her voice to be steady. “If I love you in this way, it means I lose everything if you die. But I would never have you stop being this amazing detective just to protect me and my feelings.” 

“Maura,” said Jane softly. “I…I already try to protect you. Some of the most hellish moments of my life have been watching someone harm you,” said Jane, her voice becoming thick with emotion. “I don’t think I could be tortured more effectively than to watch you...” Jane shook her head and looked up away from Maura, beads of tears threatening to work their way out of the detective’s eyes. “Let’s just say I would have let Hoyt dismember me if it meant you could escape. Seeing you bruised because I couldn’t get you out of jail fast enough…”

Maura thanked and cursed her upbringing for allowing her to restrain her emotions. Thanked because she didn’t want to collapse in public. Cursed because she wanted to let Jane know how hard this was for Maura. She was able to keep herself calm when she formed her reply.

“When you were kidnapped, I was watching you in that room, watching him hurt you. I couldn’t stop him, Jane; all I could do was watch. You were calling for Frost, over and over, because you knew I couldn’t do anything for you. I couldn’t analyze the evidence fast enough and I couldn’t warn you before you were taken.”

Maura’s control over her feelings began to slip and her voice cracked. She ducked her head downward so Jane couldn’t see her struggling.

“If it weren’t for Frost, you would have died. All because I failed.”

Jane gripped Maura’s hands tightly. “You never fail, Maura. You did everything you could that day for me. You do everything you can every day. Even if you don’t succeed, you never fail.”

Maura pushed back her sadness to correct her friend. “That’s not possible, Jane. The definition of success includes not failing.”

“See? You just succeeded in proving me wrong. Something that I know is not possible, since I am right when it comes to these things, right?” Jane’s teasing was back, this time performing its duty as an act of affection. Maura created a weak, encouraging smile. Jane’s voice took on the pleading, serious tone she reserved for Maura at the doctor’s most self-hating times.

“I called for Frost because he had the technology to find the computer. But I knew you would be able to interpret details with your encyclopedia of pointless knowledge. Almost any geek can hack a video stream, Maura. Not everyone can identify an apartment from a radiator.”

Jane pulled Maura closer, as much as they could with two plates of food, a well-set table, and a decorative carnation in the way. “You are remarkable. Unique. Singular, if I am borrowing vocabulary from a crossword puzzle. If loving me with eros is painful, we won’t do it, okay? Just tell me I won’t lose the…” Jane rolled her eyes, “Other…two…Greek love words?”

Maura knew Jane’s detective skills well enough to determine when Jane was lying. Jane remembered all three Greek words, their definitions, and the context in which they were used. It was probable Jane had encountered the words before and had concealed the knowledge so Maura could engage in a professorial display. This was Jane’s way of dumbing herself down so Maura could feel more stable on her customary intellectual pedestal, because Jane wanted Maura to feel safe. Jane would deliberately strip away her own self to protect Maura because Jane loved her more than anyone else would or could. 

This was the epiphany Maura did not know she had been waiting for. Anyone who she used to replace Jane would serve as a constant source of eros, but fundamentally that person could never hope to approach what Jane gave her. Any other relationship would be background noise. She could not imagine a future where she abandoned Jane to pursue a husband any more than she could imagine a future where she abandoned medicine. Maura had made a terrible mistake.

“We won’t lose them, Jane,” said Maura. Before Maura could try to redirect the conversation back towards the epiphany, the detective’s phone buzzed.

Jane growled a curse and dropped Maura’s hands so she could fish out her cell phone. Maura wanted to grab one back, use it as an anchor for her explanation of why Maura was completely wrong. Instead, she watched the conversation flicker across Jane’s face. Annoyance, aggravation, extreme annoyance, frustration, resigned annoyance.

Jane huffed and clicked the phone closed. “Okay, listen, do you think you can get a doggie bag in the time it takes me to bring the car around?” She pointed at the congealing food with the end of her phone. “I don’t know how well cornmeal covered raw hamburger with mixed mescaline will do in a microwave, but we’re going to find out.”

Maura cocked an eyebrow at Jane in confusion. “Where are you going? And it’s mesclun. Mescaline is a hallucinogen derived from the peyote cactus, often used by Native Americans in religious rituals.”

“Yes, I know,” growled Jane, tossing her napkin off her lap. “I worked the drug unit for how long? Anyway. You know Thomas Olesch? New guy in homicide?”

“Oh, yes,” said Maura, tapping her fingers. “Pale man, thinning hair, Midwestern accent. He has a very prominent stomach. I have been meaning to ask him if he has been checked for ascites.” 

Jane shoved the phone into her pocket and rifled through her hair. “No, Maura, you don’t introduce yourself by asking if someone has rabies or scabies or ascites. The only time you care about parasites is when they’re helping us in a murder case.” 

“It’s not a parasite,” sighed Maura. “It’s a fluid collection asso…”

Jane waved her off and stood up. “Anyway, he’s been working some stupid robbery-gone-bad. They just busted six kids and he wants me to come in to help question them. Something about time sensitive information? I owe him a favor.”

Maura’s face fell. The conversation was ending right as it needed to restart. Jane reached down and tugged Maura’s wrist.

“Okay, you get the waiter to wrap this up and bring the check. I’ll handle the tip. You think $20 will be enough?” Jane rooted through her pockets for a few bill, then stopped. “Wait, no, I’ll let you do math based on that goddamn magic algorithm you swear generates the most fair gratuity every time.” That wonderful, frustrated voice. “Another 10 minutes onto every dinner as you use your phone as an abacus.”

Maura retracted her hand. “I don’t think I’ll be much help questioning a group of robbers,” she protested.

Jane grabbed her hand again, pulling harder. “Then you can use your behavioral neuropsychology to tell me which of these dopes are lying.”

Maura didn’t pull back. She searched Jane’s face. Love, perennial aggravation, and a hint of fear that Maura didn’t expect. 

“I would still be superfluous. You have been a detective long enough to outsmart your average mook, as we call them,” noted Maura.

“Yeah, in a 1950’s cop thriller.” Jane tensed her body. “Maura, I don’t want to abandon you in a restaurant. Come with me. This stuff is always better when you’re there. Maybe you’ll learn something?”

“You’re not abandoning me,” noted Maura. That was the source of the fear, wasn’t it? Recreating William’s cruel actions that had eventually brought herself and Jane together. “You are going to do your job while I finish an admittedly overpriced meat dish.” Maura let an unforced smile cross her face. “I’ll be fine. I will bring your food home and keep it from growing an unfortunate culture of Staph aureus while it’s lukewarm.”

“Eww.” Jane’s face lit up in spite of her protest. “I’ll grab it tomorrow, then? After work?”

“It’ll be waiting for you right next to the broccoli, assuming the cheese sauce doesn’t cancel it out in an explosion. You know, sort of like a matter/antimatter collision,” grinned Maura. “Now go to the station. I’m certain your expertise is required.”

Jane squeezed Maura’s hand one last time and whirled out of the restaurant, leaving Maura alone. Maura poked her dinner with her fork a few more times. It had become completely unappealing. Not just because, well, of the way it looked but because Jane wasn’t here to lovingly make fun of it. Food tasted better when Jane was there. Life was better when Jane was there. Now that they had had this conversation, Maura couldn’t imagine her life without Jane as the focus. Maura now had the unenviable task of disentangling the web of distance she thought she had wanted to weave. Well, she had gotten herself into it. Certainly she could get herself out of it.

She signaled the waiter one more time, pulling up her napkin neatly and placing it to the side of her dish. He breezed over and looked down at her, indicating both plates, somewhat hesitantly. “One bag…or two…? I’m not sure if your companion …"

"You may pack them up together. Be sure to place a layer of cardboard between the two so they do not cross contaminate. As you know, raw meat is much more likely to hold bacteria that cooked." 

He nodded and food disappeared, leaving Maura alone, though not uncomfortably. The kind of solitude that encourages thinking rather than self-loathing. There might be time tomorrow to pull Jane aside and reinitiate this conversation. She began playing the conversation out in her head, pushing aside the parts that inevitably ended with Jane in her bed, making up for lost time.

A little while later, her food reappeared, along with the check. She opened up the leather-bound book. $100, a figure that would send Jane squalling over the relative expense. Maura could imagine Jane saying, “For that kind of money, they could at least cook the food, right? Or is slapping the damn thing on a frying pan for five minutes another $30 extra?”

Maura looked up at him and let a half smile escape. “I know this may sound silly, but is it possible for you to cook my dish into hamburger? Perhaps with a toasted sesame seed bun, romaine lettuce, fresh scallions and sliced heirloom tomatoes? And a side of russet potato fries?”

He gave a patient smile that signaled a well-trained waiter who had entertained a variety of high test patrons. “I will see that I can do, ma’am.” He took her credit card and returned to the kitchen. Her thoughts once again drifted to the ways in which she would reunite with Jane. Perhaps she would invite herself over to Jane’s apartment? No, that had too many bad memories. Maura could conjure an excuse for Jane to come over tomorrow night. Jane was often receptive to staying with Maura in times of need that Maura could use some sort of…artifice? Maura shook her head. No, she never needed artifice with Jane. Asking Jane to stay over, even without a reason, would be quite enough for the beautiful detective.

A few more delicious moments of fantasy later, the waiter reappeared with a bag smelling very strongly of newly cooked hamburger, as well as her receipt.

“I had the chef prepare a new dish, ma’am. The chef and I thought your friend would prefer a slightly more authentic form of American hamburger.”

Maura blushed. “Thank you. I’m sure she will be very appreciative.”

He disappeared once again and Maura peered at her receipt. She pulled out her phone to calculate the optimal tip for this young man, based on market rates for the individual pieces of food, cost-of-living, and his likely seniority at the restaurant. Then she reconsidered, left a $20 bill, and went home.

/--\\__/--\\__/--\\__/--\\__/--\\__/--\\__

When the doors opened on the fifth floor of the Prudential building, it was all Jane Rizzoli could do to keep from pitching forward out of the burnished metal elevator into the hallway. She glanced around, trying to get her bearings in the dimly-lit corridor whose signs failed to indicate who or what might be lurking within. The unhelpful security guards in the lobby had displayed no interest in assisting her towards her destination even when she reminded them of the recent murder on their doorstep. Three hours of sleep plus their useless attitude equaled one grumpy detective this fine Tuesday morning.

A stout young officer in a freshly pressed deep blue uniform appeared from around the corner.

“Detective Rizzoli,” she called in a thick Southie accent. “Ovah heah.” One hand gestured towards the tall brunette while the other proffered a Styrofoam cup of black coffee. With a mumble of thanks, Jane took the liquid and downed half of it in a mouth-burning sip. It didn’t matter if her tastebuds were seared off. Any infusion of caffeine would make this day go better.

“They said y’ad need some. Detective Koasak is inside interviewing the staff.”

“Have they started looking through the crime scene, Officer,” Jane glanced at the smaller woman’s ample chest. “O’Malley?”

“No, ma’am,” she replied. “They said they wanted to wait for you.”

“How thoughtful,” Jane grumbled to herself. She followed the short woman’s rapid footsteps down the hallway to a set of frosted glass doors. “Sustainable Solutions” was embossed in an imposing font across the front, flanked with an abstract swirling pattern of dots. Jane squinted at it, trying to determine if there were something obscene hidden within, but gave up within seconds as the doors were swung open by Officer O’Malley. 

Jane strode into the office. The glare of bright blue LEDs refracting off engraved “Good Citizenship” awards briefly blinded her until her tired eyes adjusted to the brilliant interior. She looked around blearily at the modern corporate sitting room, trying to locate the rest of the team among the inspirational posters, soaring nature photography, and primly dressed corporate secretaries.

She strolled up to the front desk, flashed her badge, and said, “Hi. I’m Detective Jane Rizzoli. Boston homicide.” 

An olive-skinned woman with bright blue hair glanced up from her computer and swiveled aside her headset mic. A tortured sigh escaped her lips. 

“Turn left, past the Thai panorama, and make your first right. Your people are waiting there.”

Jane unleashed a practiced scowl. “Excuse me, are we inconveniencing you with our murder investigation? Or would you like to be put first on my list of possible suspects.”

The woman rolled her eyes, which Jane noted were the same unearthly shade of blue as her hair, and pointed towards the hall. “They have already questioned me. I have fifteen formal photo shoots, two interviews, and one brief TV appearance that prove I was in Atlanta all weekend for the annual comic convention.” She tapped her computer and flipped the screen up to face Jane. The young woman in front of her, wearing a mere smattering of clothing and what appeared to be a fifty-pound greatsword, smiled back from a mix of eager teen males. 

Repositioning her computer, the secretary said, “Also, yes, it is an inconvenience to have a group of heavily-armed men and women tromping through our offices. We pride ourselves on our environmentally friendly, tranquil, customer-supportive atmosphere. You are ruining our feng sui.”

The continuation of the argument was prevented by the slightly winded appearance of Korsak.

“Hi Jane. Come on back,” he said quickly. “Dr. Isles is getting ready to open the crime scene.”

Jane pivoted away from the desk, allowing one last dirty look at the admin, before following him down the hall. 

“Feng shui. I’ll show her Feng shui. All feng shui her all the way down…”

“Easy there, Skipper,” he said, jostling her with his shoulder. “Long night?”

“If you only knew,” she mumbled to herself.

“Yeah, I heard. Olesch was pretty thrilled you were there to give up a hand. I heard they finished the rest of the bust today.”

Jane took another searing sip of her coffee. She didn’t feel like telling Korsak her night was further complicated by a troubled and shifting love life involving her best friend. She rolled her own eyes at herself. When did she become so melodramatic?

“You know me. Always glad to help.” 

Korsak dragged her down another hallway and they walked by a scenic view of what could have been Thailand should Jane have paid any attention during history. From within nearby offices, various workers in tailored suits peered up anxiously and then looked away as the grumpy figure of the detective stormed by.

At last they reached the final door of the hallway. Unlike the others, this one was closed. Two more uniforms stood in front and nodded at the detective, who peered at a pair of gold-embossed nameplates. The one featuring the name “Dr. Arnold Roginksy, DDS” was placed in the center. About an inch underneath, a second plaque with the name “Doctor Tina Nader, DDS” reflected Jane’s face. Her distorted features looked back, with dark rimmed eyes and sagging skin indicating just how damn tired she was.

“Ugh. A dentist. I hate the dentist. I swear every teeth cleaning is done by sadists who love holding conversations with people who can’t talk back. And that drill sound? I swear…”

Korsak snickered, grabbed the doorknob, and ushered her in. “You’re gonna love this.”

The inner office was decorated with maroon throw pillows, low oak tables, and dragon-covered wall hanging that screamed, “I got this on the street in Chinatown." A five foot high statue of the Buddha gazed at her imposingly from the far wall and wisps of newly placed incense curled around his placid demeanor.

Jane leaned over and whispered to Korsak, “When did we walk into the setting of kung fu movie?”

Before she could appreciate his chuckling reply, she saw Maura. Jane’s mouth went dry and her heart still fluttered. It would take time for her to repress the newly quashed feelings to keep both from being hurt further. Maura’s cream-colored suit and purple shirt, the one that flattered her so well, were a beacon of comfortable sanity in the middle of this bizarre circumstances.

“Jane,” said Maura cheerfully. “Isn’t it lovely? This is decorated just like the Jintai Temple in the Guangdong Province. I’ve never seen this Buddha rendered so well outside of a museum.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she said to Maura, moving to a second door at the far wall. Another two police officers stood near a silent male secretary glaring at her from behind his desk “You can tell me all about gong dongs once we get through this door to our crime scene.”

Jane paused and stared at Maura. “Are we expecting another dead body in there, Maura? You don’t usually come out to most crime scenes without one.”

Maura gave her a slightly peeved look. “Not gong dongs. Guangdong. Regardless, I am the most qualified person to survey a medical office and determine what, if anything, could be used for surgery. Unless you think we should find a forensic dentist, which I am certain does not exist.”

“They do, believe it or not, Dr. Isles. However, it is difficult to find one on short notice. I offered to query my colleagues but I was informed this was a time sensitive matter.”

Everyone bunched into the tiny front office turned to greet their newest guest. He was a tall man with a clipped brown beard and startling green eyes. He smiled, revealing two rows of immaculate white teeth, and extended his hand towards her best friend.

“Dr. Arnold Roginsky. A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Dr. Isles, though I wish it were under other circumstances.”

“You as well, doctor. And please, call me Maura.” Maura’s greeting was coupled with a quick appreciative sweep of her eyes over the handsome man’s body. Jane had surreptitiously done the same. He was ridiculously good looking and, Jane’s recent lesbian experiences notwithstanding, she found herself wondering what he would look like if she peeled him out of his glittering Armani suit. 

“Of course. Arnold.” He turned his piercing gaze towards her. “And you are…Detective Rizzoli?”

“I see my reputation precedes me,” she said, shaking his hand. It was warm, soft, and, Jane quickly noted, not adorned with a wedding ring. 

“If by reputation, you mean your history of dedicated service and sacrifice in the line of duty.” Another flash of that inviting, disarming grin.

He gestured towards the door behind him. “I have heard you believe a man committed suicide from my office. What a terrible tragedy.”

Jane cocked her head at him. “Based on our evidence, we suspect he was dead before he took a trip out of your window.”

Dr. Roginsky grimaced. “Oh dear. And you believe he was…killed in my office?”

“That’s what we’re here to find out,” answered Korsak. He flicked the envelope containing the warrant into the dentist’s hand. “You’ll find this in order,” he remarked.

The dentist nodded. “Yes, thank you. I appreciate the search warrant. The nature of dentistry, as with all medicine, is confidential.” He produced a silver keyring from the pocket of his pinstriped pants and unlocked the door behind him. A cluster of anxious CSIU techs and uniformed officers poured into the room, attempting to make up for the time they’d lost to the warrant. “I wanted to ensure the sanctity of my patients’ care while still aiding your investigation.”

“We have likely lost a significant amount of trace evidence during this time, especially since the room was open to the air,” chided Maura. 

He shook his head and leaned towards her. “That concern has been mollified, Dr. Isles. I mean, Maura.” He gestured to the short young man behind him. “When Gregory came in to work yesterday, he noticed the broken window. We arranged for a temporary shield to be put in place to protect the office from the elements until we could replace the glass.”

“And you didn’t notice anything awry? Like, I don’t know, a huge pool of blood?” He was far too comfortable answering her questions. Only the truly guilty psychopaths were this smooth when she was this agitated.

“I was not in the office yesterday. Monday is Dr. Nader’s day off, so I was at our office in Springfield. Gregory did not report anything besides the broken window.” Dr. Roginsky turned his emerald gaze towards his secretary. “I trust him implicitly.”

“If you’ll excuse me,” said Maura, “I’m going to conduct my forensic investigation. Jane?” She turned expectantly towards the detective, who found herself no longer distracted by the gorgeous man. The moment she caught Maura’s eye, all her attraction and attention went towards the beautiful woman.

“Right behind you.”

“Dr. Roginsky, I have one or two more questions if you don’t mind,” stated Korsak. 

“Whatever you need, detective.”

Jane left the two men behind her and followed the petite doctor into the office. She remembered her childhood dentist, whose office smelled like grinding metal and whose décor was plucked right out of the 1950’s. This room was the precise opposite. If not for a dentist’s chair and a movable lamp tucked on the ceiling, the office could easily function as the entrance to some grand cathedral. White marble tiling stretched from wall to wall with tasteful and spare shelving nestled in the corners. The Boston skyline set against a red dawn spread out in front of the floor-to-ceiling panoramic windows. After gawking at the view for a moment, Jane turned to find Maura standing there, her valise on the floor, and her arms crossed in frustration.

Maura sniffed the air and wrinkled her nose. Jane gamely did the same and detected nothing.

“Do you…smell something…” prodded Jane. 

“Sodium hypochlorite in minute amounts. Too little for the average, untrained nose to detect,” she replied. Jane shrugged off the casual insult as Maura continued. “But present nonetheless. Someone has bleached this entire room.”

Jane looked around. “Yeah, but Maura, this is a dentist’s office. Wouldn’t you expect bleach?”

“Actually, no,” came the reply from behind them. Arnold strolled in, his beautiful face troubled. “All of the offices under the Sustainable Solutions banner, including mine, have committed themselves to eco-friendly, minimally destructive practices. We use an alternative cleaning solution, combined with UV radiation, to sterilize our rooms.”

Jane nodded her head. “Okay, so, maybe whoever killed our guy cleaned up after himself?”

Maura grimaced. “That would be conjecture, Detective Rizzoli.” 

“Or maybe there was a fire and someone decided to put it out with bleach,” Jane scowled. She turned back to the dentist, who had taken a step or two forward to inspect his office. “So, Arnold. Where’s this broken window?”

“Right this way, detective.” He spun on a polished shoe, shifted aside one of the shelving units and slid open a paneled door. They stepped into a crowded space, with piles of tools, stacks of lumber, and a string of worklights dangling from the ceiling. The window was covered with a layer of plywood held in place by duct tape and garbage bags. The wind whistled menacingly outside, reminding Jane that a half inch of compressed wood shavings was all that stood between her and a long, uncomfortable descent to the pavement below. 

“We’re expanding into another office,” he explained. “Gregory came in to see if the contractors had started and discovered the missing window.” At the mention of his name, the scowling assistant came to stand beside his boss.

Jane took a step forward, then reached up and adjusted one of the work lamps. The crime scene had been irrevocably contaminated by the contractors. Any sort of trace evidence, from shoe prints to fibers, had been obliterated over the past few hours.

“Greg,” Jane said, continuing to swivel around. “Tell me about this broken window. What did it look like? Bits of broken glass? Huge spreading blood stain? Guy in the corner?”

The assistant snorted. “No, Detective Rizzoli, I did not notice a giant bloodstain or a dead body. I also didn’t notice any broken glass. I spent fewer than 30 seconds in this room once I saw the gaping hole in the wall. At that point, I retreated and called our handyman. He did not arrive, obviously.”

Jane let the light dangle down and watched with entertainment as one of the other officers had to duck to keep it from hitting him in the head. “Do you remember anything being out of place? Any tools missing? Was there any furniture in here?”

Gregory shrugged, palms up. “I wasn’t privy to the exact nature of the construction. My interaction with the contractors was limited to scheduling and occasional lunch orders. Nothing looked out of place other than the missing window.”

Jane walked over to the window and looked at the duct-taped edges. “Who came in to fix the windows? Contractors, right?”

“Yes. Once I could not get a hold of Mister Lauren, I told the contractors to come in earlier so they could cover the hole.”

“What time was that,” queried Jane.

“7:15 AM,” replied Gregory snappily. “Monday is the day of the week I use to refresh the office. It also allows the contractors to work without disturbing the patients. We prefer our patients have a more calming dental experience that does not include the sounds of construction.

“What were you doing for those 45 minutes? And did you hear about the dead guy they found on the pavement? Did you maybe put two and two together…”

“I believe if you want to question Gregory’s involvement in this matter, Detective Rizzoli, it would be better for you to launch an official inquiry.” The dentist gave a glittering, perfect smile. “And if that is the case, I would prefer for Gregory to have a lawyer present. After all, with such a sensitive matter you would not want any sort of misunderstanding born from confusion.”

Jane rolled her eyes covertly and nodded her head. “We’ll do that. Don’t leave the state,” she said snidely. “Meanwhile, we need to get some techs in here and hope that there’s some evidence left over from the crime scene.”

She stepped away from the dentist’s observation that without an arrest, Gregory was free to do whatever he wanted. Personally, she kind of hoped he would end up going out the window. She wondered of merely being annoying were enough to implicate him in the crime. Smug son of a…

Maura was standing in the middle of the pristine office, glaring out of the office into the skyline. She was wearing gloves but other than that, she had not moved from where Jane left her. The detective sidled up to her best friend and peered over her shoulder. “I didn’t know we were expecting to find evidence overlooking Fenway Park. You think having a nice view…”

“There’s nothing here,” Maura said flatly. “The techs are scouring every surface with luminol but someone very effectively removed any traces of bodily fluids. Even the ceiling is spotless. There is no way to tell if a crime was committed here. Heck, here’s no way to tell if dental work happened here.” Her voice pitched upward with a rare show of professional frustration.

“You’d think a white room would show more blood,” Jane observed. “And did you just say heck?”

“Well, when I designed this room, I had two things in mind: a soothing experience for the patient and an easy to clean, sterile environment in which to work.” The dentist approached and stood on Maura’s other side. 

“Yeah, soothing. That’s the word I associate with the dentist. Right up there with horrifying, torturous…”

The dentist’s smile was patient, almost condescending. “Yes, that is the unfortunate stereotype dental work has gained among the public. This unfortunately leads people to neglect their dental care, causing long-term problems not only in oral hygiene but also potential damage to the jaw and heart. As a result, my partner and I have endeavored to create a more holistic dental experience.” He gestured broadly. “An open space with fewer instruments makes it feel a bit less like a medieval dungeon, yes?”

“Speaking of which, where is all the equipment,” interrupted Jane. “You know, the drills, the stabbing thing, the mirror thing, the big orange light that kind of looks like a catcher’s mask…”

By way of answer, the dentist walked over the wall and tapped on what appeared to be a hidden console. The cabinet in front of him unfolded and whirring filled the air. Jane glanced up to see the medical lamp descending from a panel in the ceiling while the cabinet displayed row after row of gleaming tools within. 

He went towards a tool and Jane almost tackled him away, ushering over a crime scene tech to oversee the removal of the equipment tray. Shaking his head, the dentist explained to Jane, “In many cases, the tools themselves cause more distress than the procedure. I prefer to store the equipment out of sight and to distract the patient while I engage in the final sterilization and preparation procedures.”

“Distraction? What? Like three big-screen TVs showing the Red Sox winning the World Series?”

“Or a picture-perfect, outrageously handsome dentist,” all but whispered Maura. Jane didn’t have it in her to be jealous at that moment because she was honestly thinking the same thing. Then again, weren’t they both…this wasn’t the time to worry about it.

He indicated the cabinet and another tech walked over, took a few pictures, and opened a solid metal container. The tech took what looked like a set of massive binoculars with a pair of earbuds and carefully wrapped them in a plastic bag, then walked them over to where the dentist and detective were standing.

Maura immediately sprung to life. “Oh! This is a prototypical virtual-reality device. I was given the opportunity to beta test one for the company,” she indicated it then indicated herself with a graceful hand. “They were thinking of creating an anatomy program to be used in medical schools but I told them under no conditions could we electronically replicate the experience of being with the cadavers.”

“Yeah. I can’t imagine who would want to miss the experience of standing in a basement smelling like formaldehyde while we root around in someone’s stomach like were looking for the prize in a Cracker Jack box.” Jane deadpanned. She put on a pair of latex clubs and picked up the device. “You mean to tell me you work on some guy’s face while they are pretending they are…”

She swore a hint of a blush crossed the handsome man’s face. “I assure you all the programs we have available are suitable for every client who comes in. They are primarily natural retreats though some have a bit of excitement. My personal favorite is rock-climbing in the Adirondacks.”

Two doctors began active banter about their favorite nature exploits. Jane wanted to be privy to more Maura’s thoughts but there was still a crime to be solved. She walked back and forth across the room, watching the techs busy themselves with a new treasure trove of equipment to dust and bag. Her detective sense said every one of those tools would be cleaner than the day they were plopped into that container from their packages. 

She looked up again. This was the best-looking drop ceiling she’d ever seen in her life. Jane could not recall one that hadn’t had a handful of water-stained tiles surrounding sputtering florescent lights. Instead of the usual woven industrial tiles, this one had a series of lightly patterned pieces set into the framework metal grid. Jane squinted her eyes. Something didn’t seem right.

“Korsak? Do you see what I see?”

Korsak sauntered over and crinkled his face in the same way as hers. Then, he leaned on Jane. “I see a bunch of tiles circling to the left and I see a bunch of swirls going to the right,” he said with a conspiratorial grin.

“I don’t understand what you’re saying, Jane,” said Maura, but she obediently followed Jane’s finger as the detective pointed upwards. “Oh, I see. A subtle difference in the appearance of the tile.”

“Detective Rizzoli,” the tech shouted from the ladder. He almost tumbled to the floor in his excitement as he gestured. “I think I found something!”

The tech gingerly rotated the upper lamp on its swiveling attachment to reveal a splash of what appeared to be dried blood hidden on top of the curving yellow glass.

Jane turned to Maura in triumph. “Looks like we’ve got ourselves a crime scene, Doc.”


End file.
